What does Government's planning white paper mean for Aylesbury Vale?

The 104 page document vows to ‘Fix Britain’s housing market’ with a series of reforms - slashing red tape, proposals to stop developers land banking, encouragment for smaller building firms to take on projects and a reduction of time local councils spend processing planning applications.

The report reveals that since Since the 1970s, there have been on average 160,000 new homes each year in England. The consensus is that we need from 225,000 to 275,000 or more homes per year to keep up with population growth and start to tackle years of “under-supply”.

Peter Williams, Policy Team Leader, Forward Plans AVDC said: “Local firms are likely to benefit from what the government is suggesting. Ensuring that land is used efficiently by achieving the highest suitable densities is good practice so the amount of land used for new housing is kept to a minimum. This matches what we’ve asked our neighbouring councils to look at. Homes will still have to be suitable for the area - high rise blocks are unlikely in Aylesbury Vale. The extra funding from fees will be welcome as it means developers will help to pay for a better planning service. We hope cutting red tape will have a beneficial effect as it should mean that developers will build the homes they have committed to build more quickly, so they won’t be able to claim that the council should allow them to have more land for development than we want them to.” Mark Hayward, Managing Director of the National Association of Estate Agency says: “Only 32,000 affordable homes were built in 2016, and this is totally unacceptable. We’ve had years of empty promises now and this has exacerbated the problem resulting in the price of properties being out of reach for so many.The announcement the Government plans to diversify the market by opening it up to smaller builders who embrace innovative and efficient methods is great and could go some way in helping deliver a vast number of homes quickly.”