"We simply don’t have enough houses": Chesterfield MP backs new Labour Government planning reforms and house building targets

In one of the first flagship policy announcements made by Labour in Westminster on Tuesday, July 30, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government began detailing their plans to overhaul planning regulations.

Ms Rayner has written to every council in England to stress they have “not just a professional responsibility but a moral obligation to see more homes built.”

Their stated intent is to deliver 1.5million new homes within the next five years – both to ease the housing crisis and drive wider economic growth – and while the new local authority targets have sparked uproar in some parts of the country, Mr Perkins is focused on the positive potential impact in Chesterfield.

He said: “There is a very significant housing shortage, and a number of different causes for that, but it has very significant consequences, particularly for the younger generation I see in my surgeries every week struggling to get suitable accommodation.

“They’re often in very much overcrowded homes, and in a pretty desperate state. Successive governments have talking about being able to bring forward enough supply just for the current generation of British people. We simply don’t have enough houses.”

The new targets are part of a broader set of measures to reform the National Planning Policy Framework, with all proposals open for public consultation until September 24.

Under the new targets, Chesterfield Borough Council would be expected to deliver an average 571 new homes per year, whether by supporting developer schemes, or by building new council housing.

That represents an increase of 168 per cent on the current mandated target of 211, with only North East Derbyshire (178 per cent, from 224 to 662) seeing a greater potential increase out of the county’s nine district and city council areas.

Between 2020 and 2023, Chesterfield delivered an average 313 homes per year, exceeding its existing target.

One of the hot topics around the planning reforms has been the prospect of increased building on designated greenbelt land.

That might cause fresh concern in the greenbelt which circles Chesterfield to the north, west and south, as well as semi-rural areas to the east, like Duckmanton, where significant developments are already in the pipeline.

New Bolsover MP Natalie Fleet did not respond to an interview request for this article, but Mr Perkins says Chesterfield has plenty of space to build on before paving over its fields.

He said: “If you look around there are a number of brownfield sites to develop first. We’ve seen the Robinsons site sat for a long time not being developed, there are more plans for the Lavers site and there are others taking a long time too. Some of those will happen anyway, and they would probably achieve quite a bit of the existing target.

“Across the country there will also be same cases where you’ve got what we describe a ‘grey belt’ – very low grade agricultural land.”

“In a town a geographically tight as Chesterfield, you can travel from most parts of town to most other parts of town quickly and easily. Maybe people want to live somewhere like Newbold or Staveley but the key thing is where are our available sites.”

One notable absence from the reforms at this stage are any measures to deal with developers ‘land banking’ – leaving sites undeveloped until it suits them, while councils try to hit their targets elsewhere.

Mr Perkins said: “That’s definitely an issue we’re very conscious of, and may well be something my colleagues want to look at. Watch this space.

“If you speak to developers they’ll say 10-12 per cent of development costs come before a brick is laid, just in terms of administration and bureaucracy.

“Lowering the cost of the planning process is one part of it, but it’s not the whole story. If planning reforms don’t bring these sites forward, there is a need to look at taxation and other means to make sure developers aren’t sat on large amounts of land.”

The supply issue is not simply about population growth. Census statistics for Chesterfield suggest there was actually a slight decrease in the number of people living in the town over the decade to 2021.

However, changes in household composition, property market trends and uneven economic development nationwide add up to a complex situation where the quantity, type and location of available properties do not always match up to the people who need those homes or their financial means.

Mr Perkins said: “Chesterfield has built more council houses in the last three years than the previous 25, and it is one of the areas that’s been reasonably successful in bringing proposals forward – but the truth is we’ve got an aging population, and there’s more need for housing within family units.

“There are more divorces than there once were, meaning one family might need two properties. We’ve got a significant waiting list in the social housing sector and a shortage in the private rental sector.

“One of the things we need is more bungalows. A lot of pensioners are ready to downsize or reluctantly move on from their current properties but can’t find appropriate housing. If we get those bungalows built, pensioners will move in and free up family homes.”

He added: “As a country, we also can’t just go on constantly growing and growing around London. It’s necessary to make sure we spread growth across the country.

“Another problem we have in some places is that people who grow up there can’t afford to live there later. Only the wealthy can afford it. If a teacher or nursery nurse can’t afford to live in a community, that has an impact on local services.”

Though mandatory targets are pushed as a solution by policymakers, and planning deregulation usually welcomed by developers, from a resident’s perspective such changes may seem more like an attack on their only defence from inappropriate development, poor design and lost amenities.

As well as altering the character of a neighbourhood, it may cause some anxious glances at property prices – an important consideration in terms of financial security for people approaching later life, especially now Labour has scrapped legislation to cap care costs.

Mr Perkins said: “Setting new targets is just one of the ways we’re going to need to tackle it. We do recognise that wherever you have new housing development, often that will be met with opposition from people in the local area.

“They might already be struggling to get school places, doctor’s appointments, they might already be concerned about traffic, and think more homes will exacerbate those problems. That’s perfectly reasonable.

“The government is saying that where houses are built, the infrastructure must be there alongside them. It’s reasonable for local authorities to decide where houses are built, but it’s not reasonable for them to say ‘no houses here, thanks.’

“Developers have to make a profit, we all understand that, but there is always a balance in terms of affordable homes, and authorities already have some powers to sit down with developers and address all these questions before plans are submitted.

“We want to assist councils to build more too, but that means a conversation about right-to-buy. At the moment, any tenant can buy their property at a discount after three years, meaning authorities often lose money within a few years of building homes.”

He added: “The previous government removed targets and largely left it to an incentive programme. They introduced the New Homes Bonus so authorities got more money if they built more houses.

“It was entirely carrot-based. I think, broadly, there were no consequences for any authority which kept on turning down planning applications.”

The talk of consequences hints at the possibility national authorities could take decisions out of local hands, just as they did with the 150-home project at Northmoor View in Brimington.

For all the talk of councils working in partnership with developers, it is likely conflicts will continue to arise where current residents oppose plans on their doorstep and test the limits of local democracy.

Mr Perkins said: “Northmoor View happened under the previous system and it was pretty unsatisfactory. It’s hard to justify Northmoor View with the number of brownfield sites available.

“But I can’t realistically say the outcome would be different if that development was being proposed today. The likelihood is the same thing would happen.”

He added: “There will always be a need for planning permission, but it needs to take into account that there are things we have to get done.

“We’ve had a situation in Dunston where a new estate of 500 houses was built, and when they want to build another few hundred houses in the next field the new residents opposed it. That feels a little bit like pulling up the drawbridge.

“We have to make sure local authorities have some say, but we aren’t going to give them a veto to any expansion.”

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