“District councils have played a central role in enabling housing growth in this country, contributing to the highest building rates in a decade. In the last year alone, districts were responsible for enabling almost 50 per cent of housing completions in England.

“The New Homes Bonus (NHB) has provided districts with a positive and powerful incentive to build more houses and support growth in our localities. However, the proposed 0.4 per cent threshold for the NHB is not acceptable to district councils and any suggestion that this could increase in the future will not be supported by the DCN. This baseline creates a perverse incentive which penalises district councils for delivering more housing growth.

“District Councils approve 90 per cent of residential applications. The proposals to reduce the NHB for all authorities who see any successful appeals weakens the hand of authorities that aspire to get the highest quality of development that is acceptable to their communities.

“Councils should not tempted to settle for second best at the risk of being taken to appeal for inadequate applications.”

ENDS

“District councils, as the housing and planning authorities, are at the forefront of housing delivery, enabling almost 50 per cent of new housing completions last year and approving 90 per cent of planning applications. The DCN fully supports the Government’s housebuilding ambitions and we will continue to play a central role in helping to deliver them.

“We have concerns that a national formula may never take into account all local constraints but, whilst contentious, this may provide greater certainty in plan making and speed up the process in some cases, an outcome which would be welcomed. Our members will want to be reassured that where there are overriding environment or infrastructure constraints that this must be taken into account in the plan making process.

“To deliver additional housing growth, district councils must be given greater fiscal freedom and incentives to truly unlock their potential. We continue to call on government to ensure that the New Homes Bonus incentivises all housing growth by removing the baseline threshold, unlocking planning permissions that are not being delivered, increasing the time available to spend Right to Buy receipts, allowing Districts to retain 100 per cent of Right to Buy receipts to build new homes and to lift the borrowing cap for the Housing Revenue Account.

“The DCN has long called for an increase in planning permission fees and we therefore welcome the Government’s recommitment to increasing planning fees by 20 per cent, which must now be agreed by Parliament at the earliest opportunity. We also welcome the potential for a further 20 per cent increase going forward.”

ENDS

“The District Councils’ Network has long called for locally set planning fees so at to increase the capacity of our planning departments. As this analysis reveals the current level of nationally set fees are heaping financial pressure on local authorities and putting councils’ ability to deliver housing growth in a timely manner at risk.

“District councils have invested heavily in online planning systems, with the result that many more people are now engaging with the planning process and making representations, which need to be taken into account. This important democratisation of an administrative process produced better decisions but has added to cost.

“There is no doubt that district councils play a fundamental role in boosting growth, as the authorities responsible for housing and planning. However, as demand for council planning services increases, pressure caused by wider council funding cuts, and the ongoing inability for local authorities to recover the true cost of processing planning applications, continues to grow.

“Whilst we await with baited breath for the Government to enact the planned 20 per cent increase to planning fees, this research demonstrates the importance of the Government agreeing to locally set planning fees going forward.”

ENDS

“Districts are –  and will continue to be – at the forefront of delivering the country’s housing needs since they already accommodate one-in-two new homes built nationwide. In this spirit we welcome a greater emphasis on flexibility around type and tenure, including a renewed focus on affordable homes and  homes to rent, in the White Paper – to help our members build the homes this country needs.

“However, district councils will also require greater fiscal freedoms to fully unlock their ability to build more homes, including the removal of the HRA borrowing cap, the use of Right to Buy receipts and other borrowing freedoms, and we will continue to make our case to Government in our response to the White Paper.

“The DCN is also pleased to see the White Paper will take on board some of our long-standing recommendations for speeding up house-building by giving councils powers to make developers build out within two years of granting planning permission. This will address our concerns relating to the gap between the number of planning permissions granted by district councils and the number of new homes completed.

“We also welcome proposals to increase planning fees by 20% from July 2017, with the prospect of a further 20% increase to councils who are delivering new homes for their communities. For too long council planning departments have been under-resourced to deliver local planning, and the DCN has lobbied tirelessly over many years for fuller cost recovery.

“In responding to the White Paper, the DCN will now examine the detail, including plans for a Housing Delivery Test and new proposals around a standardised way of calculating housing demand,  with care and consideration – with a view to ensuring the housing revolution is built on strong foundations and is locally driven.

“For us, this means a planning system aligned with the broader devolution agenda, one that supports cross-boundary planning across functional economic and strategic housing market areas, incentivises local plan-making and firmly links local growth with strategic infrastructure.”