I attended the 20th Annual National Residential Development Planning Conference this week and came away with a few interesting takeaways.
One of the main themes throughout the day was the generally positive response to the latest updates to the NPPF. Several speakers welcomed the stronger support for developing underused land in sustainable locations, particularly around well-connected railway stations, as a way of helping to unlock new housing opportunities. The “default yes” approach around qualifying stations was mentioned a number of times as a potentially significant change for the sector.
Housing delivery was another major topic. While there is no shortage of sites with planning permission, many speakers highlighted the growing gap between planning approvals and homes actually being built. Funding, viability, labour shortages and developer capacity were all cited as barriers to delivery.
This naturally led to discussion around the Government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million new homes during this Parliament, equivalent to around 300,000 homes per year. While most people supported the objective, there was a fair amount of scepticism in the room about whether the industry currently has the capacity to deliver at that scale, particularly given current market conditions and the number of consented schemes that remain stalled.
One of the more interesting sessions looked at AI and its potential role in residential planning. The speaker made a strong case that AI is already helping speed up decision-making and improve efficiency across local authorities, particularly where a lot of planning assessment and document review is still carried out using fairly traditional and time-consuming processes.
My overall takeaway was that planning reform is only one part of the solution. The latest policy changes may help unlock opportunities, but the challenge of turning permissions into completed homes remains just as important.
Thanks to the organisers and speakers for an insightful event and some thought-provoking discussions.
