Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to grant powers to councils to be able to use unused planning permissions.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government’s Housing White Paper set out a wide ranging approach to driving up build out of planning permissions.
In addition, at Autumn Budget 2017, the Government announced that an independent review of build out will be conducted. This will be chaired by the Rt Hon Sir Oliver Letwin MP, with the support of a cross-party panel of experts. The review will consider the significant gap between housing completions, and the amount of planning permissions and land allocated for housing. The review panel will make recommendations for closing this gap, and will report on its findings in 2018.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many unused planning permissions there are in (a) West Sussex and (b) The Coast to Capital LEP area.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The department does not hold the requested information. Planning permissions are the responsibility of local planning authorities and as such this information can be requested from the relevant local planning authorities for the geography required.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which sites he has identified to become locally-led garden cities.
Answered by Lord Sharma
We are currently supporting the development of twenty-four locally-led garden cities, towns and villages with the potential for 220,000 new homes across England.
There are 10 locally-led garden cities, towns and communities at Ebbsfleet, Bicester, Didcot, Basingstoke, Otterpool Park in Kent, Aylesbury, Taunton, Harlow-Gilston, North Essex and North Northamptonshire.
We also announced our support for 14 Garden Villages in January 2017:
Long Marston in Stratford-on-Avon
Oxfordshire Cotswold in West Oxfordshire;
Tresham in East Northants;
Culm in Mid Devon;
Welborne near Fareham in Hampshire
West Carclaze in Cornwall;
Dunton Hills near Brentwood, Essex;
Spitalgate Heath in South Kesteven District, Lincolnshire
Halsnead in Knowsley, Merseyside;
We intend to publish in the Spring, a prospectus inviting expressions of interest in ambitious, locally supported, proposals for high quality new garden communities at scale.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he intends to publish the report by Dame Louise Casey on integration.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Dame Louise Casey published the findings of her independent review into opportunity and integration in our most isolated and deprived communities on 5 December 2016.
A copy of the report can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-casey-review-a-review-into-opportunity-and-integration
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the extent to which extra infrastructure spending in (a) Mid Sussex and (b) West Sussex has been in line with new house building; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Barwell
Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, total net housing additions in West Sussex were 15,280, of which 3,470 were accounted for by Mid Sussex. The planning system offers a number of tools to help ensure development of new homes contribute to meeting infrastructure need, including the community infrastructure levy and planning obligations where necessary to make development acceptable. Although my Department does not monitor the full range of infrastructure spending in local areas, government publishes detailed annual data of each local authority’s capital expenditure.
This is available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-capital-expenditure-receipts-and-financing.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will grant to local authorities the power to levy council tax on developments not completed within a set period.
Answered by Lord Barwell
This government has no such plans, but in our Housing White Paper we set out a range of measures to speed up build out. The consultation is currently open.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent progress there has been on the release of public land for housing; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Public Land for Housing programme was announced at Autumn Statement 2015 and aims to dispose of surplus government-owned land in England with capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020. This will increase the supply of land for housing development and contribute towards improving the efficiency and sustainability of the government’s estate.
Each department is responsible for identifying and releasing land towards the programme’s overall objectives, according to their individual plans and delivery commitments that each has agreed.
Ministers for the Department for Communities and Local Government are responsible for land and housing policy and for setting the overall direction of the programme. The Department for Communities and Local Government leads the programme by working with departments to identify and release land as quickly as possible, holding departments to account for their land disposal plans and publishing evidence to provide assurance that the programme’s outcomes are being achieved.
The Homes and Communities Agency acts as the government’s disposer of surplus land (outside London), receiving transfers from departments and disposing of land at pace, providing expertise and advice to departments in meeting their part in the programme’s objectives and collects, validates and reports programme performance data for the Department.
The Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report, published in February 2017, reported that between May 2015 and September 2016 the total housing capacity of land either identified for sale or already released by all departments contributing to the programme was 145,492 (91 per cent of the programme ambition), of which land with capacity for 13,817 homes had been released.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is responsible for identifying and co-ordinating the release of public land for housing.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Public Land for Housing programme was announced at Autumn Statement 2015 and aims to dispose of surplus government-owned land in England with capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020. This will increase the supply of land for housing development and contribute towards improving the efficiency and sustainability of the government’s estate.
Each department is responsible for identifying and releasing land towards the programme’s overall objectives, according to their individual plans and delivery commitments that each has agreed.
Ministers for the Department for Communities and Local Government are responsible for land and housing policy and for setting the overall direction of the programme. The Department for Communities and Local Government leads the programme by working with departments to identify and release land as quickly as possible, holding departments to account for their land disposal plans and publishing evidence to provide assurance that the programme’s outcomes are being achieved.
The Homes and Communities Agency acts as the government’s disposer of surplus land (outside London), receiving transfers from departments and disposing of land at pace, providing expertise and advice to departments in meeting their part in the programme’s objectives and collects, validates and reports programme performance data for the Department.
The Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report, published in February 2017, reported that between May 2015 and September 2016 the total housing capacity of land either identified for sale or already released by all departments contributing to the programme was 145,492 (91 per cent of the programme ambition), of which land with capacity for 13,817 homes had been released.