Angela Rayner has unveiled two flagship pieces of policy that will shake up planning policy and the local government architecture to get growth going. Senior Associate Sam Tankard takes a look at what impact this might have for businesses that operate in this sector.  

Housing, planning and the local government system have long been identified by Keir Starmer’s Labour party as major constrictions on growth, and he has talked before about taking a “bulldozer” to the planning system. His Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also cited the desire to get Britain building as a key, and relatively low cost, lever to unlocking growth. Over the last week, we’ve seen the culmination of this with Angela Rayner, arguably one of the most powerful cabinet ministers, presenting her two-step solution to injecting impetus into councils and the wider built environment.

Backing the builders

The updated National Planning Policy Framework was published on 12 December and is seen as the key to unlocking 1.5 million new homes. The most significant change is to mandatory housing targets which will see many councils, particularly leafier constituencies and suburbs, deliver as many as 5 times the number of new homes per year than they currently are under Local Plans, as she calls on councils to all do their bit to meet their housing need, as the question is shifted to “where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all.”

The Government sees prioritising low quality “grey belt” as key to this housing mission and is supporting these new changes with £100m for extra planning officers to speed up and deal with bottlenecks in the system.

Tackling the blockers

The structure of councils has been long overdue a refresh and given how many of this Labour parliamentary party come from local authority backgrounds, it is no surprise to see a Labour Government bring forward a “devolution revolution”.

The English Devolution White Paper – which will form the basis of the English Devolution Bill in 2025 – proposes more powers for combined Authority Mayors who will receive new integrated funding settlements covering housing, growth, retrofit, transport and skills and employment as the Government wants to empower local leaders and shed Whitehall control. However, Rayner will still have increased call in powers if significant projects are not making necessary progress.

It is also clear the Government hopes this will deal with some of the inefficiencies in the way councils deliver public services and procure contract support, which will be welcome to businesses who support local authorities. As such, many two-tier council areas will be replaced by unitary authorities, where boundaries are hindering ability to deliver public services.

Growth unlocked?

Rayner will hope that these reforms will address the bureaucracy that Whitehall and local government process has burdened on public service and housing delivery, and help unlock the investment desperately needed across huge swathes of the built environment. If successful therefore, businesses operating at this intersection of housing and councils should take confidence that healthy opportunities are on the horizon. The next challenge will be where will all these builders and engineers come from…