Labour is right to push hard to ease the housing crisis – but must avoid leaving a gruesome legacy

Editorial: There has to be some flexibility built into the new plans if they are to be a viable intervention rather than a ‘war on rural England’ that will tarnish our landscape for generations to come

As it is in nature and architecture, so it is in planning – there is always a balance to be found. The government’s proposals for the planning system represent the biggest shake-up since the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, at the dawn of the modern system of regulation.

There is no doubt about the need for a fresh approach, or about the dangers it carries with it. The combination of reimposing “top-down” housing targets on local authorities in England (the devolved administrations will go their own ways), the sheer scale of the ambition to build housing, and the use of central power to impose planning judgements on communities against their will, will create unprecedented political and social tensions. Balancing the national interest and local feeling will be a formidable task.

There is, at least, consensus about the seriousness of the housing crisis. The opposition parties agree with the government that part of the solution to Britain’s lack of affordable homes is to increase the supply – and that means building more of them, one way or another. The target of 1.5 million for this parliament, at a rate of around 370,000 constructed per annum, is broadly accepted – and, as ministers frequently assert, was endorsed by the people at the general election.

The national democratic mandate for “change” in housing is clear, and it is rightly one of Sir Keir Starmer’s priorities. The Conservatives, rather quietly, seem to have dropped their longstanding opposition in principle to the targets they once decried as both undemocratic and disrespectful to countryside communities – not to mention damaging to precious landscapes and rural lifestyles.

Too often, such legitimate democratic concerns morph into adamantine militant nimbyism – and the scale of the housing shortage today is such that the balance between national imperatives and local rights has to be tilted. The question is where – and in term of the composition of the new homes, how – this is to be done.

There’s also a surprising high-level consensus about the principles governing these choices. The priority, all agree, is to promote “brownfield” development on urban sites, particularly those in our cities still needing regeneration. Then comes “greyfield” development – lower-quality, less-developed sites – and, only as a last resort, incursions into greenfield areas.

Brownfield development is the ideal. There is huge potential to be tapped. Changes in our lifestyle mean that there are not just old industrial buildings ready for repurposing, but also redundant office blocks and shops. Some have handsome facades worth preserving; others are less appealing, and would not be missed, especially if – as with so many post-war offices and stores – they are unsuitable for conversion into homes.

In London, in particular, there is a problem in making these schemes viable if they have to conform to a quota of social and affordable housing – but with some ingenuity, and public subsidy, these issues could be resolved to the benefit of all, and a balance struck. It’s certainly not desirable that the core of the capital city should become a place where only the wealthy can be found.

The more difficult decisions concern the grey and greenfield zones. Local authorities, whether Labour-controlled or otherwise, plead that they simply cannot identify in their plans the amount of land required to be earmarked for housing under ever more demanding targets – which, in some areas, are up by 100 to 1,000 per cent.

That problem is compounded when neither councils nor developers can find a way to build the infrastructure necessary to support larger developments – roads, drains, schools, green spaces, GP surgeries and so on. Ministers cannot simply insist that the local authorities conjure up potential sites where they do not exist, or where they are unsuitable or unacceptable. From bitter experience, the nation now understands the madness of building on flood plains, in areas subject to coastal erosion, or where it would pose a risk to ancient woodland.

There has to be some flexibility built into these new plans if they are to be realistic, viable, and capable of housing people in the places where they wish to live. There have to be mechanisms whereby councils and local groups can make ministers think again, and respond to concerns – and the politicians and civil servants in Whitehall have a duty to listen.

There should be no “blockers’ charter”, but neither should people have a sense that they are being ignored. It is, after all, their lives and their environment that are about to be transformed. Most important in this context would be to reinstate the previous requirement for residential developments to be “beautiful”: a subjective factor, admittedly, but some defence against the most jarring and overbearing of developments.

This was something that many post-war Labour politicians, such as Nye Bevan, Herbert Morrison and Anthony Crosland, well understood – that the homes being built for the people should conform to certain high standards for room space and garden amenity, but should also be attractive, well designed, harmonious and pleasing places to dwell. No more system-built brutalist blocks or Lego houses, please.

Sir Keir and Angela Rayner are right to push the planning system hard, and to try to ease the housing crisis, but they must surely also want to avoid leaving behind a gruesome legacy of eyesores that will be resented by generations to come.

Given the gross error of the “tractor tax”, and ambitions for onshore wind and solar farms (plus accompanying pylons), the government should also be wary of being portrayed as declaring a “war on rural England”, as the Tories have already branded it. That certainly won’t help Labour present itself as a “one nation” party and win the next election; getting the balance right, though, just might.