Election results: what does a Labour government mean for the planning system?

After weeks of campaigning, the Labour Party has won a landslide victory in the UK general election. We set out below what a Labour government could mean for the planning system. 

First steps: NPPF changes

The Labour manifesto commits to “immediately” updating the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), to reverse some of the changes introduced by the Conservative Party, including re-instating mandatory housing targets. 

The current version of the NPPF refers to the standard method for assessing housing need as “an advisory starting-point”. It will be hoped by developers that a firmer policy basis for assessing housing need will incentivise local authorities to more readily grant planning permission for residential developments.

The Labour Party has also committed to revising national planning policy to allow for easier delivery of laboratories, digital infrastructure and gigafactories. At this stage we do not have details as to what these will look like, but these types of changes have been welcomed by the life sciences sector. 

Compared to legislative change, amendments to the NPPF can be introduced relatively quickly – so we would expect announcements from Labour on more details for such policy changes within the coming weeks.

Housing and infrastructure: a long term strategy?

Labour has committed to planning reform that would allow for 1.5 million homes to be built over the parliament. This equates to the delivery of 300,000 homes per year – a delivery rate successive governments have promised, but failed to achieve. 

To reach the 1.5 million home target, the Labour Party has committed to: 

• taking a “brownfield first approach” and fast-tracking developments on urban brownfield sites;
• preserving high quality greenbelt land while releasing lower quality “grey belt” land for development;
• building a new generation of new towns in addition to urban extensions and regeneration projects; 
• strengthening planning obligations and amending the Affordable Homes Programme to allow for delivery of “the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”; and 
• unlocking development affected by nutrient neutrality (see our article here for why this is causing delays). 

The Labour Party manifesto has also committed to introducing mechanisms for “cross-boundary strategic planning”. It is hoped that regional planning will allow for coordinated housing delivery at scale.

In terms of infrastructure delivery, Labour has committed to making “major projects faster and cheaper by slashing red tape”. We do not have the details as to how this will be achieved as yet – but again, this is an area to watch.

Thoughts for the future

It is one thing to make commitments in a manifesto and a very different matter to put those policies into practice. Developers have largely welcomed Labour’s proposals for changes to the planning system to date. However, Keir Starmer’s government will now face an uphill battle trying to increase housing delivery and improve delivery rates of infrastructure projects in the context of underfunded local authorities, environmental concerns and anti-development public sentiment (be that NIMBY-ism or otherwise).

The Labour manifesto commitments are not the only planning points the new Government will have to consider. The Government will need to determine whether any of the unimplemented changes proposed by the last government will be taken forward, such as whether the Community Infrastructure Levy will be replaced by a new form of Infrastructure Levy (see our article here).

Can Labour’s proposals be the change so many in the country voted for? We will have to wait and see how many of the promises from the manifesto ultimately make it into the King’s Speech let alone into reality. In our view, if there is any chance of the country delivering 1.5 million homes in the next parliament, a long-term, strategic approach will be required.