004_LH730_sales news 1_011_LS466_interview 22/05/2015 15:00 Page 2
PROPERTY NEWS
SALES NEWS
POST-ELECTION PLANNING – A ROADMAP TO WHERE?
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hat are the implications of a new Conservative government for planning policy? SHW’s Alex Bateman investigates. Firstly, let’s look at key points of the Conservative manifesto. For instance: "When new homes are granted planning permission, we will make sure local communities know up-front that necessary infrastructure such as schools and roads will be provided.” The manifesto also pledged to protect the green belt. It said that brownfield land would be used "as much as possible" and local authorities would be required to have "a register of what is available" and ensure "90 per cent of brownfield sites have planning permission for housing by 2020". A new London Land Commission will also be created "with a mandate to identify and release all surplus brownfield land owned by the public sector" and
said Housing Zones would create 95,000 new homes. The Conservatives would also create a £1 billion "Brownfield Regeneration Fund" designed to unlock the construction of homes. The Conservative manifesto also pledged: • To "build more homes that people can afford", including 200,000 new Starter Homes exclusively for first-time buyers under 40 over the course of the next parliament
authorities to manage their housing and assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant" • A new "Right to Build, requiring councils to allocate land to local people to build or commission their own home, as you can do in most of Europe" • To support Business Improvement Districts and "other forms of business-led collaboration on high streets giving more say to local traders on issues such as minor planning applications, cleaning and parking"
• To extend Help to Buy to cover another 120,000 homes
• To "build new roads and railways in a way that limits, as far as possible, their impact on the environment" This includes investing £300 million in "cutting light pollution from new roads, doing more tunnelling, building better noise barriers and helping restore lost habitat"
• Extend the Right to Buy to tenants in housing associations, funding the replacement of properties sold under the Right to Buy "by requiring local
• To create a "Blue Belt" around the UK’s 14 Overseas Territories and a network of marine conservation zones off UK coasts
• To deliver 275,000 additional affordable homes by 2020
MISHON MACKAY: ELECTION EFFECT
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arc Cox Director at Mishon Mackay gauges the effect that the Election result will have on the residential property market. “For several weeks leading up to the 2015 general election houses didn't seem as safe as they might be. Across the country, house buying and selling activity stalled as people awaited the result. So the announcement that there would be a winner with a clear if perhaps only slender majority was met by those in the housing industry with a collective sigh of relief. It wasn’t necessarily the political stripe of the party that won but the fact there was at least a clear result and the property market would not be left in limbo during weeks and possibly months of political horse-trading and in-fighting. Also, there will be an acknowledgement that the threat of mansion tax has gone. This was a significant concern towards the upper end of the market. Another worry was the threat of rent control. This would potentially have affected the buy-to-let market dramatically. So there is a mandate from the
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Separately, Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to introduce a new Enterprise Bill to cut red tape for businesses within the first 100 days of his new government. In addition to that above, we all need to ready ourselves for the result of the Airports Commission’s study on the choice of an extension to either Heathrow or Gatwick. We also hope that further clarification on the Office to Residential Permitted Development Rights as to whether they will be extended and what is meant by “implementation”. Concluding, there is so much for the new government to do, let’s just hope whatever happens they don’t drag their feet over these important promises and decisions. www.shw.co.uk, 01903 229200
electorate. The city has responded favourably. The pound is up; shares in major house building firms are up and at least 37 per cent of the population feel a little more confident about the immediate future – buoyed by a trend of improving trade, employment and cost of living figures. But let us all hope – no matter which party we supported – that the next government, besides dealing with a small majority, a large deficit, Europe, devolution, world hot spots and many other incredibly important issues, will at last get to grips with an effective and sustainable housing policy in the UK. It will not be before time.” www.mishonmackay.com
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