COUNCIL chief, Graham Farrant has rebuffed attempts for communities minister Eric Pickles to come in and sort out house-build problems.
The government had plans to send teams of mediators into councils to renegotiate stalled developments.
Communities secretary Eric Pickles announced on Monday that 10 pilot councils would work with mediators to kick-start housing projects that had ground to a halt because developers believed the ‘Section 106’ agreements they had negotiated were no longer affordable.
It had been reported that a list of some 20 councils was circulating as recently as last Friday, but was scaled back after many expressed concern that the initiative was too heavily focused on cutting affordable home requirements and did not consider other factors stalling developments.
Other councils objected to the tone of Mr Pickles’ accompanying announcement, which they felt was excessively negative about local government.
Planning gain agreements – mainly for affordable housing but also sometimes for infrastructure – are imposed by councils as conditions for planning consents.
The government believes agreements entered into before 2008 are likely to require more affordable homes than the price of homes for sale can now support, with the result that projects have stalled.
Mediators will try to get these social housing commitments reduced or scrapped.
But a number of councils said that developers’ lack of cash – and potential buyers’ inability to secure mortgages – were far more important barriers than were s106 conditions.
Chief executive of Thurock Council, Graham Farrant said: “Our analysis shows it is not s106 that is delaying developments here, it is just economic conditions.
“Develops have too little cash and they are uncertain. I don’t think they would start in most cases even if there were no s106 requirements.”
The LGA echoed concerns that Mr Pickles was looking for the wrong solution to the problem.
Mike Jones (Con) chair of its environment board, said: “Lack of liquidity in the finance market and limited availability of mortgages stagnating demand are the real hurdles to viability, not the cost of providing much needed s106 infrastructure”.
He said mediation should “only come at the specific request of individual councils”, as imposed mediation would undermine trust in the planning process and increase public hostility to development.
The mediation programme will be delivered through the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), whose executive director David Curtis said the councils originally approached to participate were those with the highest numbers of unimplemented planning consents.
“We will talk to them to understand why homes are not coming forward and see if there is something we can do,” he said.
“That could be because of s106 or some other policy barrier. Policies deigned pre-crash and not necessarily right for this moment in time and some flexibility is needed.”
Mr Curtis conceded some people might “think it a bit odd” that the HCA would be involved in negotiations to reduce provision of affordable homes, but explained: “We have a wider responsibility for the provisions of good quality housing.”
For the last 3 decades Thurrock has provided property developers with land & profits and as a last resort or after thought community and social infrastructure are added on. The idea that housing profits maybe made and no Community structures now provided via Section 106 and new collective agreements is absurd. Chafford Hundred stands out as a site with marked problems of lack of schools for instance. Does this Borough really want mass housing with no clear water / gas / electric / digital / transport systems / roads / Shops / Community facilities and the only people in the long run happy – property developers? Thurrock Green and other spaces are precioius and it must given for housing with due long term Community structural plans attached. We are not a Borough of London yet!
In the not too distant future people will see what an abject failure the last governments policy of mass immigration will turn out to be for this country. Dress it up how you like, the Labour party always knew they were reliant on the private sector building millions of houses to cope with the millions of people that they flooded this country with. Now the private secotor have told the current government to stick it where the sun don’t shine unless the government pays for the infrastructure itself. The Labour party’s mass immigration policy is going to cost this country tens of billions more on top of the tens of billions it has already cost. What we will get in return is an ever decreasing quality of life and an ever decreasing standard of living due to low wages because of ever increasing competition for sparse jobs. Already my own children have written off ever owning their own homes and their adult lives have barely begun. The whole of the last Labour government should be locked away for life for what they have done to this country. By bye green belt. Thanks very much to the Labour party.