A report published this week has spurred new hope for the housing market suggesting a way to build thousands of new homes under the government-backed Build to Rent scheme but how could that be achieved.
Rob Ellice, chief executive of easyProperty, believes the government should free up the planning process for smaller developments to make that prediction a reality.
The Rental Revolution Report has projected that more than 150,000 homes could be built in the UK over the next five years under the Build to Rent scheme, which would significantly ease the pressure on the housing market.
However, less than 2,000 (at the end of 2014 only 715 homes of the targeted 16,000 had been delivered to the market) of these properties are coming on to the market to date, Ellice says and calls on the government to shake up the planning process.
“The current affordability crisis in the housing market means there has never been more urgent need or demand for Build-to-Rent schemes. Of course, it’s no surprise that it’s the planning process that is the biggest obstacle, we need to speed it up.
“The bigger the Build-to-Rent scheme, the longer it’s taking to get through planning, and the more it’s costing – in some cases planning applications can add £1M on to costs. Yes, there are some really ambitious projects in the pipeline, and there is a massive supply of cash just waiting to be pumped into it due to a huge appetite for Build-to-Rent among investors, developers and financiers, but the problem is that they can’t get the sites through the process.
“I know this is a problem right across the market, I can list numerous funds that would write very big cheques tomorrow if they could get their hands on suitable parcels of land. I know one fund that is trying to find sites to develop for approx 2,500 units but so far they’ve not succeeded. This is obviously a frustration as there is no shortage of urban brownfield sites in metropolitan areas, but because the sites can’t get the planning. I am calling on the Government to sort out the issue of planning for Build-to-Rent as a priority.”
One key solution advocated by the easyProperty chief executive is to ease the restrictions for smaller developments.
“Free up the planning process for smaller sites and you could see a lot of units built very quickly. Let’s encourage the entrepreneurs; I’m talking about smaller storage yards and what is now small pieces of land in urban areas. If we could ease the planning restrictions here we could see a lot of smaller units adding up to something substantial, and quite rapidly too. As large scale developments need to go through a far longer and more onerous process, this is the solution to speeding up delivery of housing stock to ease the market crisis. By changing the processes needed to approve small schemes so that it is less laborious and quicker, it will also free up resource for larger sites hopefully speeding up the process for these as well.”
