The Conservative Party would financially reward councils providing for the building of new homes, whilst scrapping ‘bureaucratic’ house-building targets and regional transport strategies.
Under the plans unveiled this week, rather than bidding for funds from central Government to pay for roads and other infrastructure to accompany new development, councils would ‘automatically’ receive extra money based on the number of new homes built, to spend as they wish.
The Conservatives also pledged to allow local authorities to wrest responsibility for economic development from regional development agencies, forming new ‘economic partnerships’ covering sub-regional areas.
Conservative leader David Cameron said: ‘I’m convinced that if more decisions made and money are spent at the local level, we’ll get better outcomes’. The policy paper, Returning Power to Local Communities, outlines plans for a ‘permanent and simple incentive for local government to encourage rather than resist new housing’.
The Government would match the increase in council tax revenue generated by each new home for a six-year period ‘to pay for the increased services that will be required, hold down council tax, or both’.
The proposal will defend the party from claims that its longstanding commitment to abolish regional house-building targets would be ‘a nimby’s charter’ – a charge leveled in the past by Labour ministers committed to increasing house-building in response to need.
However, the Campaign to Protect Rural England was concerned that the measure amounted to ‘bribes for development’. Fiona Howie, CPRE’s senior regional policy officer, said: ‘Proper planning must remain sacrosanct.’ The Conservatives would also ‘localise and simplify’ the proposed new community infrastructure levy and section 106 agreements.
The Local Government Association agreed with the Conservatives that the Government’s planning and delivery grant ‘is complex and doesn’t compensate for the financial impact of planning for growth’.
However, given that the money would come from the local government formula grant pot of money, the LGA was ‘concerned that there may be insufficient money left to give all authorities the necessary level of core grant’. Liberal Democrat LGA leader Cllr Richard Kemp said that the proposals failed to readdressing the reliance of local government on Whitehall funding for 80% of its funding, and would allow Whitehall ‘to continue to call the tune’.
Defending the proposal to scrap RDAs, the Conservatives said that economic development should reflect natural local economies based on transport links’. However, Gideon Amos, spokesman for the Town and Country Planning Association, said that the Conservatives ‘would need to figure out how to deliver regional-scale projects’.
Click here to read Returning Power to Local Communities
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