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Recently, I was one of a small number of senior Conservative activists invited to a breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister at Downing Street. The Prime Minister was interested to hear our views about the issues we face. I spoke about housing as a third-generation homebuilder and someone who has spent 39 years in the industry, from building houses to engaging with communities on new housing, business, and industry development. The Conservative Party faces an existential crisis. For it to be the election-winning machine it has been for much of its existence, it must do one thing above all to win over the electorate—make the modern-day case for capitalism. A key component of this is ensuring that every individual has a physical stake in society. We would argue that the easiest way of achieving this is through bricks and mortar and creating a new ‘property-owning democracy.’ In 2016, just 34% of the adult population aged 16-34 were owner-occupiers [1] . By contrast, in 1995, property ownership for the same age group stood at 54%. So, the question for Government is this: do we move forward and build new housing our communities and residents need, or do we risk alienating an entire generation of aspirant homeowners? The reality is that the Conservative Party has always prospered electorally when it promotes a positive agenda on housing. In 1951, Winston Churchill triumphantly returned to Government on a manifesto of property ownership, and his administration fulfilled its pledge to the electorate to build 300,000 houses a year – a policy overseen by the future Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. In 1980, it was, of course, Margaret Thatcher who introduced the ‘right to buy’, which increased property ownership by 12 per cent over just three years. So, how do get spades into the ground? There isn’t, of course one silver bullet, but here’s my three-point plan for starters. One – There needs to be a recognition that existing backlogs in the planning application determination process are a barrier to building new homes. a) Planning fees currently set by the Central Government, should be determined by individual local authorities. Currently, these fees do not cover the actual cost of processing applications. For example, in 2020/2021, 305 out of 343 planning departments operated in a deficit cumulatively totalling £245 million. b) Council planning departments also continue to experience recruitment and retention problems due to competition from the private sector. Giving councils the ability to set their planning fees locally would result in the sector being able to compete more effectively on terms and conditions, benefiting local residents. Whilst Chess Engage welcomed recent changes allowing councils to charge increased fees on major applications in exchange for an accelerated decision-making process, we fear that this will exclude local construction firms responsible for smaller-scale development. Developers, whatever their size, are key to tackling the housing shortage. Fully devolving the power to set planning fees to local authorities will speed up the decision-making process for all applications and turbocharge the effort to build more housing without costing the Treasury anything. Two – we need to get Councils building more homes. We know that social housing provides families with a secure environment to live in and can act as a bridge to home ownership. Of course, building new social housing will also help reduce the overall housing shortage and address the homelessness surge we are currently sadly seeing. Research from the LGA indicates that for every £1 invested in social housing, £2.84 is returned to the broader economy. Likewise, for every social home built, the Government can save £780 in housing benefit. To support councils in building more social homes, Government should allow Councils to retain 100% of their right to buy receipts to build social homes to replace those where people have taken the right steps to home ownership. These right-to-buy receipts staying with councils would be a real boost to the ambition of councils to build more social housing and reduce the use of temporary accommodation. Three - local authorities also need the long-term financial sustainability of their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs). For this reason, Chess Engage is calling on the Government to allow social housing rents to be set directly by local authorities rather than centrally. Again, this would be at zero cost to the Treasury but would ensure that HRAs have the long-term certainty necessary to deliver more social homes. With this power, councils would also be genuinely accountable to tenants for managing social housing. To tackle the national housing shortage and create the next generation of homeowners, we need to recognise that it is Local Government that can and will deliver sustainable housing to communities across our country. As a longstanding councillor and party activist who has knocked on thousands of doors over the years, I know that most people don’t fear new housing per se, but rather development that is not well designed and which does not come with the necessary infrastructure that is needed to support the additional demand on public services. Will the PM adopt my three-point plan? I do believe that delivering these three quick and easy wins which will boost housing growth and help the next generation of homeowners could be a way forward. In so doing, we will make the contemporary case for capitalism and secure the next generation of Conservative voters. After we’d finished, one of the PM’s policy advisors got in touch to set up a follow up meeting. Watch this space…  [1] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7706/CBP-7706.pdf

As one MP recently put it, the Government continues in office with the air of the football fan who arbitrarily declares that Blackburn Rovers are on top of the Premier League with Alan Shearer tearing defences apart with his pace. Meanwhile, reality looms. The giant YouGov/Telegraph MRP poll published on 15 January shows a swathe of red and gold across the map of what has for a century been the truest of blue Conservative heartlands in the Home Counties. Across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and into Sussex, polling data predicts the worst possible nightmare for Rishi Sunak. The funders of the poll, nameless Conservative donors, may not have wished for the outcome they got; but they certainly got Tory MPs doing a frantic postcode search. Polls like these tend to downplay the effects of tactical voting; however, even if, as many of us expect, Richard Tice marches his Reform Party candidates to withdraw as in 2019 to minimise Tory discomfort, the situation looks dire for the Tories. The seeds of these results were sown in the post-referendum chaos of 2019. The revival of Lib Dem fortunes that fell flat during a General Election campaign nonetheless revived the party’s local government base in many leafier parts of the South, with concerns about development and sewage often featuring in local campaigns. Housing land supply shortfalls frequently led to particular challenges for a government enabling a “development free-for-all”. As recent Post Office/Horizon scandal coverage has shown, heat can follow news stories particularly fast. Reputation management dictates a need to manage sensitive projects at times when aspiring politicians have an eye for a headline. With boundary changes creating uncertainty, the risk for the industry is that once an issue is seized on, all parties will want to be seen as supporting a local action group or campaign. As the by-election in Chesham and Amersham that coined the “Blue Wall” showed, opponents of change have a broader audience at an election.  News recently reached us of a developer pushing ahead with a speculative application in one of the long-shot Lib Dem target constituencies. Music to our ears….. if we were a local Lib Dem election planning team. The natural tension between the populist urge to support local action groups and the shared, cross-party goal to build more homes will only go one way in these largely rural seats. While local opinion is much more balanced than an adrenalin-fuelled activist might acknowledge, we know as campaigners ourselves that in such situations, short-term political drivers hold sway. At Chess, our cross-party political team does more than just banter. We have direct experience of just what local Conservatives are prepared to do to escape their likely fate; and what Lib Dem campaigners are relying on to revive their party. May’s local elections, from a Conservative high water mark, are likely to be a dry run. Our advice now on managing risk is a strategic necessity; knowing when not to do things is important in an election year, and regardless of the colour of my colleagues’ rosettes, the advice we at Chess will give is an essential part of any promotion strategy for 2024.

It is always a great pleasure engaging with stakeholders and the wider community as development proposals evolve in local authorities across the country. Away from the day job, as a Hillingdon councillor, all too often we feel done to rather than properly engaged with, as part of the planning application process. Engagement while matters are still at a formative stage is by far the best way to approach development proposals. Done well, there should be an opportunity for local communities to help shape and benefit from development proposals in the spirit of Localism, and mobilise support. Burning some shoe leather and knocking on doors to meet residents really can pay dividends. It was great this week in Wokingham when our engagement efforts on behalf of a care home developer/operator client were commended by Cllr Keith Baker, former leader of Wokingham Borough Council, and Woodley Town Councillor. Fulsome praise indeed from a senior elected member!

Who knew! Michael Gove is a magician…. Now you see it… now you don’t. With one sentence of his pre-Christmas NPPF announcement Councils could set their own housing targets and with another oh no they can’t. The revised NPPF has been a bit of pantomime. Gove announced the review of planning laws over a year ago Christmas 2022. He promised to publish his response in March, then it was in October and finally he did publish it a few days before Christmas. Local Councils will still need to determine their housing target using the standard method. Planning Inspectors are not going to allow anything other than the standard method, which remains the legal starting point. As Nick Ridley said: ‘Send me your plans and I’ll send you my inspectors.’ When is greenbelt sacrosanct? When you have exceptional circumstances that mean you can’t breach it. Exceptional circumstances being something in your local authority area that no other Council in the entire country has. If you do have exceptional circumstances then DHLUC will have to agree with you first before you run off thinking you can stop housebuilding. When is a 5 year housing land supply a 4 year housing land supply? When good councils progress their local plans, starting with using the standard method for calculating the housing number, and they have a Regulation 18 consultation underway at least. Then councils can then fall back on the loop hole Gove has created where they can apply a 4 year land supply with the five year period. What does all of this hyperbole mean. It means change is more apparent than real. It’s more words in a speech to appease Tory backbenchers than actual changes that will curtail housebuilding. It’s always wise to look to the small print and any good KC will advise you that the target of 300,000 homes a year and the desire to have councils adopt local plans remains the core driver. Any council waiting on more changes, or for these perceived changes to actually mean they suddenly have the power to do as they please will be sorely disappointed. The truth is that you would be forgiven for listening to Gove and his junior ministers and believing what you hear. Not that Labour have an idea either as the only real position taken so far by Angela Raynor is to confirm that they would impose top down targets and they want 1.5 million homes, raising the bar from the Tories 1 million target over 4 years. There is something to be said for burying bad news on top of Christmas, but it wasn’t the bad news the development industry thought it was. So you have a site or local plan allocation, you have major investors that want security, you are trying to work out what your next move will be? What does all of this mean to you? That’s why our political expertise, our knowledge of local government and national politics is an indispensable part of your risk management. We are the political professionals. Let us guide and advise you in these uncertain times.