Planning permission not the hold up to building houses

Graham_Devon

The LGA has called for builders who fail to quickly build properties on land granted planning permission should face stiff penalties.

They state that planning permission is not the hold up and that builders had unimplemented planning permission for 381k plots in 2012-13, 443k plots in 2013-14 and 475k plots in 2014-15.

The home builders federation disagrees stating that too many too many sites are "stuck" in planning permission, stating 150,000 plots were awaiting sign off.

Make of it what you will. But certainly the figures seem to suggest planning permission isn't the biggest issue here. Housebuilders deny sitting on land while it's value increases.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35245313

TickersPlaysPop

I listened to a radio debate and a house builders rep said 45% of planning permission was with individuals not house building companies. He reckoned that people apply for permission and don't bother to build, through motivation from the increase in value of their property from simply getting permission.

Blacklight

Of course it's not. House builders build not quite enough to meet demand to keep prices high.

Why would you think it was anything to do with planning permission? It's not like if the governance was removed, building rates would double and houses would be half price.

I'm glad you don't run your own business Graham.

Graham_Devon

Blacklight wrote: »

Of course it's not. House builders build not quite enough to meet demand to keep prices high.

I know.

What you don't know, or maybe you just don't realise is that you are agreeing with everything I have said previously.

Marktheshark

Yeah just pick up the phone and get the job centre to send you another 50,000 skilled building workers.

It takes on average at least 5 years on the job to learn a trade to a level of competence, we are not talking about some course with a bit of paper, we are talking about actually doing the job.
People are pouring in to the country faster than we can build, much much faster, we are losing the battle on house building.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

the figures seem to suggest planning permission isn't the biggest issue here.

Planning is not the biggest issue, at the moment, and hasn't been since about 2008.

Mortgage Rationing is.

Builders will only build what they can sell....

HornetSaver

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

I listened to a radio debate and a house builders rep said 45% of planning permission was with individuals not house building companies. He reckoned that people apply for permission and don't bother to build, through motivation from the increase in value of their property from simply getting permission.

It's quite common - someone with the intention of selling gets planning permission with the intention of using that to boost the price, is disappointed by the lack of improvement in value relative to the effort, so simply wait until prices rise a bit anyway. The key question with those applications is what the property or land is doing in that period - it usually continues to be utilized and therefore the process does little harm.

On the other hand developers holding onto land generally leave it unused while waiting for the project to become more profitable or feasible (sometimes speculation, sometimes by trying to renegotiate the planning permission, sometimes because they have finite resources and want to use them on other projects first). That does do harm.

shortchanged_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Planning is not the biggest issue, at the moment, and hasn't been since about 2008.

Mortgage Rationing is.

Builders will only build what they can sell....

But by not building they are compounding the problem.

Higher prices = even more affordability issues.

So ultimately they are shooting themselves in the foot with their drip feeding.

CLAPTON

Blacklight wrote: »

Of course it's not. House builders build not quite enough to meet demand to keep prices high.

Why would you think it was anything to do with planning permission? It's not like if the governance was removed, building rates would double and houses would be half price.

I'm glad you don't run your own business Graham.

which of course gives people like you (and loads of other greedy people) an absolutely amasing opportunity to move into building and make their fortune whilst the big boys don't actually build (and so make no money) but hold up the price.

mwpt

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Planning is not the biggest issue, at the moment, and hasn't been since about 2008.

Mortgage Rationing is.

Builders will only build what they can sell....

Could you explain exactly what you mean by mortgage rationing?

princeofpounds

To anyone who has a speck of experience with the system on a commercial basis, this will come as no surprise.


But unfortunately this is a large amount of BS from the LGA.


There are a few reasons why this occurs, some of which have been pointed out.


But what the LGA isn't telling you is that a lot of planning permissions initially granted for large housing developments are actually pretty useless. To survive the NIMBYism, councillors basically fight back on every point they can in order to be able to tell their constituents they scored a victory.


Then once you have established the principle of planning, you have to resubmit to get permission for what needs to actually be built, which is often quite different.


Add to that the fact that you need to landbank about 4-5 years of projects minimum in order to have a viable building business (as that is the length of the development cycle, only 2 year of which is actual building). If you have a gap in building and a workforce sitting idle, either everyone gets fired (and no company exists), or you go bankrupt (and no company exists).


And you never know the real timescales for planning (across multiple applications and reapplications) or what order sites will be delivered in. So you always have a natural stock of unbuilt permitted sites even if you don't have to mess around with multiple applications.


You see, the LGA would have you believe that projects only get stuck in planning when they are actually sitting on their desk under a live application. In the real world, you submit, you resubmit (often several times), and you have to work on the plans in between applications.