Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-10-13.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to encourage house building on sites where planning permissions have been given for house building.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
We are keen to drive up delivery of new housing once permission has been granted and we are actively taking steps to tackle some of the factors which can delay a start to development. We are taking forward measures through the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which was introduced on 7 September, to improve the use of planning conditions to avoid unnecessary delays to development. We have also, through the Housing and Planning Act 2016, introduced a provision for a section 106 dispute resolution process. This will assist in speeding up negotiations on the content of section 106 planning obligations, where developers and local authorities have failed to reach an agreement. Secondary legislation is required to implement the provision. We also expect the members of the Home Builders Federation to adhere to their commitments in May to provide local authorities with transparent annual returns on build-out rates. And we will be setting out further measures in the forthcoming Housing White Paper.
