Housing and planning minister John Healey says affordable housing development is suffering because councils do not negotiate well enough with the private sector.
Labour MP Healey, talking this morning on PublicPropertyUK.com and Property Week’s online pre-election Property Question Time event, said local authorities needed to be more flexible about how they negotiate with private developers if they want to get affordable housing in their areas.
“If I have a criticism, it’s that too many councils are too weak and unskilled to have those discussions with private developers,” he said. Healey said councils …

You only have one week left to register to take part in our Property Question Time Live in which Bob Neill and John McCready go head-to-head on property.
Labour’s housing and planning minister and the Conservative shadow local government and planning minister will get a grilling from Public Property UK’s audience as well as debate chairman, Property Week editor Giles Barrie, on 27 April.
We will have them both here at Property Week studios for one hour next Tuesday from 11am. You can tune in live – for free – and submit …

The government plans to overhaul three planning policies to help councils deal better with planning applications for sustainable developments.
Government department Communities and Local Government has today published three draft Planning Policy Statements on climate change, coastal change, and the natural environment. CLG wants the three to act as a “green planning rulebook”.
It also announced £10m so councils can develop their skills as “green champions” so they can develop sustainable housing and energy sources.
Housing and planning minister John Healey said: “The tougher, better guidelines for planning give councils a new blueprint, …

Government has approved a package of planning reforms that it says will help save developers time and money.
Housing and planning minister John Healey has confirmed that Parliament has given the green light to plans to make it cheaper when developers pay to extend planning permissions. Healey said the measures would help save developers up to £69m a year.
Fees for extending planning permissions that could previously have run to £250,000 on large projects would now be £500. The fee for smaller developers, which used to be as high as £3,000, is …

London mayor Boris Johnson’s housing plans will not do enough to address the capital’s affordable housing shortage, the government has warned today.
Housing and planning minister John Healey has issued a response from government department Communities and Local Government to the Greater London Authority’s London Housing Strategy, which is part of the London Plan. Healey has criticised the plan because it would only create 13,200 affordable homes a year in London.
The government has also criticised to move away from the target that 50% of new homes in London should be affordable. …

Housing minister John Healey has today launched a new initiative to encourage developers to build homes on publicly-owned land.
Today, Healey has launched the Public Land Initiative, under which developers and government would share the risk of development. The aim is to encourage them to develop up to 100,000 cheaper homes, of which 40,000 would be affordable. The first three sites to be developed under the programme are:

Bentley near Doncaster where 178 homes are planned.
Kingsmead South near Milton Keynes where 200 homes are planned, with work expected to start this autumn.
East …

New planning powers designed to inhibit the spread of shared rental housing will be given to local authorities within three months, housing minister John Healey announced today.
The powers, which allow councils to impose landlord licensing schemes at their own discretion, will be aimed at “hotspot” areas such where clusters of shared homes are being poorly looked after, often leading to community problems.
Existing law forces local authorities to get permission from the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) before introducing discretionary or selective licensing under the Housing Act 2004. The …

Housing Minister John Healey today promised a freeze on planning fees in the next financial year, in a bid to stimulate development during the downturn.
The government says the move will save developers £23m a year and could preserve jobs, as well as helping more homeowners to make improvements. Fees for planning appeals, which were due to be introduced in 2010, will no longer apply, meaning companies will avoid paying for a decision to be reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate.
John Healey said raising planning fees during the recession would be a …

Government planning body the Infrastructure Planning Commission has named Gideon Amos OBE one of its new commissioners.
Amos, head of the Town and Country Planning Association, was earlier today announced by housing and planning minister John Healey as a commissioner at the IPC. Healey was speaking at the TCPA national conference today. He will join the IPC as a full time commissioner at the beginning of next March.
Amos will be responsible for overseeing the planning process for major infrastructure schemes, such as expansions to airports and new nuclear power stations.
The IPC …