Final Letwin Report

20/11/2018

Sir Oliver Letwin’s final report on Build Out Rates was published at the end of last month. The report was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the Autumn Budget 2017. The purpose of the report was to be an independent review of Build Out Rates within the UK. The Draft Analysis was published in June this year and you can find out more on this in our article written at the time of release titled ‘Letwin Report’.

The main conclusion by Letwin and his team in the Draft Analysis was that the homogeneity of the types and tenures of the homes being built out on large sites limits the rate at which the market will absorb such products leading to the fundamental reason of slow build out rates. The final report presents recommendations about ways the Government could overcome this.

In the final report one of the main recommendations is for the Government to adopt a new set of planning rules specifically for large sites (initially over 1500 units). One of the new rules would be to diversify the offerings of housing tenure on sites to address various categories of demand within the local housing market. This seems fairly obvious and shouldn’t need enforcing as any developer would be properly planning out their site to maximise value with the market dictating what housing tenure is required. It is recommended that these new rules begin to take effect within the planning system before they are given full statutory backing. It is also recommend the Government establish a ‘National Expert Committee’ to advise local authorities on these large sites and act as intermediary where there may be any disagreement between local authorities and the developers.

The draft and final Letwin report focuses on the reason for slow build out rates after the planning stage. As the report makes recommendations to impose more early planning rules it is not fully understood why more research hasn’t been done into the planning system and it feels slight disjointed as adding supplementary layers of planning restrictions and giving struggling local authorities more power will only slow the whole process down further.

To read the full report click here.

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Highways Infrastructure

05/11/2018

Building and upgrading highways infrastructure alone won’t solve the UK’s congestion problems. It needs to be a more robust strategy with smarter solutions on how to tackle the problems. You only need to drive on a short stretch of motorway or dual carriageway to see that the road networks in place aren’t being utilised by drivers in the most efficient manner. Further education for drivers on how to use the road networks is key and needs a nationwide program rolled out. Until human error can be removed from the equation and we see the full implementation of driverless cars with AI it is looking likely we will all have to tolerate some form of traffic for the time being.

World renowned physicist Michio Kaku has said the following on driverless cars: “As transportation is digitized in the next decade, driverless cars, guided by GPS and radar, will share our highways. ‘Traffic accidents’ and ‘traffic jams’ will become archaic terms. https://futurism.com/michio-kaku-prominent-futurist-predictions/

The cost of the infrastructure maintenance and upgrades is no small amount with the Chancellor earmarking £28.8 billion in the Autumn Budget 2018 for a ‘National Roads Fund’ to help fund new roads and maintain the existing network. The Infrastructure Cost Review was a 2010 report commissioned by the UK government and written by Infrastructure UK to find efficiency savings in the delivery of infrastructure projects. The bulk of costs saving came at the procurement and planning stage.

With the cost associated to traffic infrastructure upgrades to cope with ever increasing demands it is imperative we learn how to use the networks in the most efficient manner as the smallest user errors can have widespread knock on effects.

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