Planning, Housing Supply and Affordable Provision in Britain

Abstract

This chapter examines recent developments in housing and planning policy in Britain, with a particular focus on England in the period following the Barker reviews on housing supply and the planning system (Barker 2004, 2006). Despite a well-established emphasis on housing as a material consideration under the national planning regime, inadequate housing supply emerged as a critical policy problem in the new millennium. The chapter reviews this supply agenda, as well as the range of specific interventions, to support the growing non-profit affordable housing sector in England. These mechanisms—the capacity to require developers to incorporate affordable housing within their development under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act, as well as the capacity to release land for affordable housing in rural areas—have proved particularly important in the context of wider government aspirations for increased housing production as well as specific reforms to the funding and provision of social housing. In particular, the growth over time of a powerful non-profit affordable housing sector, and the close integration of housing policy objectives with wider spatial planning goals, means that affordable housing stock is generally well located in accessible urban areas and that affordable housing providers are able to play an important role in the delivery of new housing in conjunction with market operators. In the context of government austerity and a housing market downturn, the capacity of the affordable housing sector to operate counter cyclically may have been an important factor protecting the UK housing market from collapse and in sustaining much needed supply over the period. However, as discussed in this chapter, a number of tensions in achieving overall housing output remain, particularly under government reforms introduced with the passage of the New Localism Act 2012.