Whitehall watch

Yes, Britain needs more houses. But will government get the planning equations right – or just open the floodgates and let down the locals? Peter Madden says Gordon Brown needs to think this through.

The bill for this summer’s floods stands at billions of pounds. And climate change means we must expect more extreme weather events in the future. We’ll certainly see more politicians wading around in their wellies dispensing sympathy.

We are always going to be vulnerable to flooding. Our towns and cities are built on riverbanks and harbours. But over the past 100 years we have made things much worse. We have developed the flood plains, farmed our land so the water runs off more quickly, and covered the country with concrete. Rainwater no longer soaks into the ground or filters slowly to the rivers; instead it rushes across the hard surfaces and through the drains – and causes flooding.

And we’re about to embark on a huge new construction programme. One of the first things Gordon Brown did as prime minister was to set a target of building three million extra homes by 2020 – in a bid to tackle house price inflation and make homes more affordable. Can we do this in ways which are sensitive to environmental constraints? This will be one of the big challenges for the Brown administration.

The good news is the promise that new houses will be zero carbon by 2016 [see 'How low can you go? ']. But this still leaves the question of where they will be built. Can we find sites where people actually want to live without adding to flood risk and water shortages, harming biodiversity or concreting over the countryside?

On our crowded island, there are powerful competing pressures on our scarce land resources. The government is currently trying to change how we decide what goes where, to speed up planning decisions and to give localities less choice about accommodating new houses. Its planning White Paper proposes that infrastructure issues – such as airports, power stations, waste disposal facilities, ports, roads, and so on – should be decided by a new, independent commission. The commission’s work would be guided by a sequence of new national policy statements in each of these different areas – which would certainly be very welcome.

The planning White Paper, launched in May, provoked a hostile response from the green movement. Friends of the Earth warned that it would “fast-track massive and damaging new developments, increase UK carbon dioxide emissions, and reduce the right of local people to object to schemes that threaten their communities.” The UK’s main environmental, conservation and civic organisations – in a coalition with a combined membership of over five million members, including the National Trust, the Ramblers and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – argue that implementing the government’s proposals in their current form would be a backwards step.

"We’re shaping up for a battle royal: more houses and speedier decisions, versus conservation and a strong local voice."

So we seem to be shaping up for a battle royal. In one camp are those who want greater housebuilding numbers, and speedier decisions on infrastructure. In the other are those who want to protect what we have, and to keep a strong local voice in planning decisions. At the centre of this battle will be the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Ministers here are unlikely to be sympathetic to the green cause, with the exception of housing minister Yvette Cooper who is a strong advocate of tackling climate change. Planning minister John Healy has just moved from the Treasury, and is likely to continue to press that department’s focus on delivering greater economic productivity through planning. Hazel Blears, the secretary of state, has made her own views clear, saying: “I think we are going to have a tussle… because some people are concerned about environmental issues… But I think the priority has to be to build these homes."

There is no easy way through this. We will need more homes – though we should be wary of following a simple ‘predict and provide’ approach. But we must also remember that good planning is essential for sustainable development and environmental protection. What we build – and where – determines how we will live for decades to come.

Peter Madden is chief executive of Forum for the Future.

26 October 2007

Peter Madden