Javi Khanijau, commercial and real estate partner at Excello Law, comments on the UK government’s proposals to build thousands more homes near railway stations and other public transport hubs under new planning rules.
The Government’s announcement that housing close to well-connected railway, tram and underground stations should benefit from a new “default yes” in the planning system is a welcome and fundamentally sensible step.
There is an obvious logic to building more homes around existing transport infrastructure. People are able to live closer to employment and services, reliance on cars can be reduced, existing public transport becomes more sustainable and investment can help regenerate areas around stations which are often surprisingly underdeveloped.
There is also a wider economic benefit. Housing development generates construction activity and employment, while providing homes in well-connected locations improves access to labour markets and makes towns and cities more attractive places in which to live, work and invest.
So the Government is right to act. But there is an equally obvious question: shouldn’t the planning system already have been doing this?
Transport accessibility has long been a fundamental planning consideration. Developers routinely have to demonstrate the accessibility and sustainability of developments through transport assessments, travel plans and other supporting information.
The real test of today’s announcement will therefore not be whether national planning policy becomes more supportive of development around stations. It will be whether that policy results in significantly more homes actually being built.
Planning certainty is an economic issue
One of the most important benefits these reforms could deliver is greater certainty.
Development is ultimately an exercise in assessing and pricing risk. Where a developer does not know whether a fundamentally sustainable site will receive planning permission or whether the decision will take six months, twelve months or considerably longer – that uncertainty inevitably has a cost and that cost is ever more significant.
Land has to be controlled. Finance has to be maintained. Consultants and professional teams have to be retained. Construction prices can change and funding markets can move. The longer and less predictable the planning process becomes, the greater the risk which has to be factored into a development appraisal. That ultimately affects what a developer can pay for land, the level of planning contributions a scheme can support and, in marginal cases, whether the development is viable at all.
A genuine presumption in favour of appropriately designed development around well connected stations could therefore be extremely valuable, but only if it produces certainty in practice rather than simply another policy for developers and planning authorities to debate.
Government should be aiming for a system in which a developer looking at a suitable site around a well-connected station has a reasonably clear idea at the outset of what can be built, at what density and within what timeframe a decision should be made. That certainty encourages investment.
Public landowners also have to play their part
There is then the question of the land itself. Many development opportunities around railway infrastructure involve land controlled by railway bodies, local authorities and other public-sector organisations. Government therefore needs to ensure that public landowners are active participants in this policy.
It is not enough to create a presumption in favour of development if strategically located public land remains unavailable or takes years to bring to market. There should be a proactive exercise to identify suitable land around well-connected stations, establish ownership, determine what land is genuinely surplus to operational requirements and then work with local authorities and the private sector to bring viable sites forward.
Where railway land is involved, operational requirements and future railway needs obviously have to come first. But where land can safely be released, the process needs to be commercial, coordinated and fast.
Some station sites will be expensive to develop
The Government also needs to recognise that development around railway infrastructure is not necessarily straightforward or inexpensive. These sites can involve contamination, difficult access, utilities diversions, noise and vibration mitigation, complex foundations and additional engineering requirements associated with working alongside operational railway infrastructure.
Higher-density development can itself increase construction costs. That is where planning policy has to meet commercial reality. If Government genuinely wants difficult brownfield and transport-oriented sites developed, there needs to be sufficient flexibility around planning obligations where abnormal development costs threaten viability.
For strategically important sites, there may also be a case for targeted public sector assistance with infrastructure, remediation and enabling works. Because granting planning permission for a development which is commercially unviable achieves very little.
Government is right to recognise the wider planning problem
Importantly, today’s announcement does recognise that the problem goes beyond simply deciding where houses should be built.
The Government is also proposing measures intended to make planning decisions faster and more proportionate, including reducing information requirements for smaller schemes, creating a new category of “medium” development and reducing unnecessary consultation requirements.
That is welcome. The Government deserves credit for recognising that planning policy and planning process have to be reformed together. But the challenge will be translating those reforms into what applicants and planning officers actually experience on the ground.
Planning departments across the country remain under considerable pressure and, in many areas, simply do not have sufficient resources. We see the consequences of this directly through development projects with which we are involved. Even relatively straightforward applications can spend months within the planning system before fairly basic questions or requests for information are raised.
Often these are matters which could have been identified shortly after submission. That creates frustration for developers, but it also creates additional work for planning officers themselves. Applications move backwards and forwards unnecessarily, consultants have to be re-engaged and decisions are delayed.
The Government has therefore correctly identified the problem. The next stage must be to give planning authorities the resources, processes and technology to solve it.
AI should be part of the solution
This is an area where Government and local authorities should be ambitious about technology.
There is no suggestion that artificial intelligence should replace qualified planning officers or determine whether an application receives planning permission. Human judgement and professional oversight must remain fundamental. But there is a considerable amount of work within the planning process which does not require sophisticated planning judgement.
AI-assisted systems could undertake an initial screening of applications against national and local requirements, identify missing information, flag obvious policy issues, check validation requirements, summarise lengthy supporting documents and consultation responses and identify matters requiring an officer’s attention.
Imagine an application being submitted and, within days, both the applicant and planning officer receiving an intelligent preliminary report identifying the principal issues which need to be addressed. The planning officer remains responsible for the application and the ultimate judgement, but starts with a structured analysis rather than having to identify every issue manually. If a missing transport document, ecology report or technical issue can be identified in week one rather than month four, several months can potentially be removed from the process.
Used properly, technology should not replace planners. It should free planners to do the work that actually requires planners.
From “default yes” to homes being built
Today’s announcement is therefore a positive step and the Government should be given credit for both the direction of the policy and for recognising the need to streamline the wider planning process. Building more homes around railway stations makes sense. Increasing appropriate density around existing transport infrastructure makes sense. Providing greater certainty to developers and investors makes sense. And reducing unnecessary bureaucracy within the planning process is long overdue.
But implementation will be everything. Government now needs to join the pieces together and the relevant parts are planning policy, certainty, public land release, development viability, infrastructure investment, properly resourced planning departments and intelligent use of technology.
The objective should be a planning system in which good development in sustainable locations can be identified, assessed and approved quickly and predictably. Because ultimately the housing crisis will not be solved by the number of policies announced or even the number of planning permissions issued. It will be solved by homes actually being built.
The Government’s new “default yes” is a welcome step towards that objective. The real test will be whether the rest of the planning system can now turn that “yes” into homes.
