The Future of House Building

12/04/2019

With the housing numbers within the UK not being met is there a new quicker method of building housing. The UK could be entering a new era of prefab or ‘modular construction’ house building.

Modular construction has some controversy surrounding it though with one side arguing that it produces a lower quality product whilst the other promises higher standards than traditional methods claiming they will be more energy efficient. One thing is for certain with a modular home building factory announced last month in Cheshire aiming to produce 2,000 homes a year we will see modular homes across the UK.

Modern construction methods shouldn’t be discounted from the house building process but they should be incorporated with proven traditional methods to ensure the UK’s home maintain the high standards we have become accustomed to. The industry should strive to continually innovate from the design stage right through to construction and ultimately completion.

The Rosewell Review

27/02/2019

The Rosewell review points to outdated administrative processes and poor IT infrastructure stating that planning appeal decisions should be actioned quicker with five months easily being shaved off from majority of cases.

An independent review of planning appeal inquiries was set in motion June 2018 with the findings being released at the end of 2018. On 19 December 2018 Bridget Rosewell submitted her independent report on planning appeal inquiries to the Secretary of State.  The report summarises the findings of the review and makes 22 recommendations on how the planning appeal inquiry process can be improved and decisions made more quickly.

Amongst the whole report there is one statement that stands out above the rest:

“Inquiries, like all processes, rely on having the right people to undertake…”

It is critical that with the digital upgrading of the planning system, technological advances and the stream lining of current planning process that we ensure the individuals working within the system are capable and competent. There needs to be more accountability for the individuals involved with planning applications reaching this point especially when they are being overturned and granted permission. The tools and processes being used can be changed and upgraded time and time again but if the individuals using them do not adapt with these changes then the system will remain flawed.  

The full report is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/777822/Independent_Review_of_Planning_Appeal_Inquiries_Exec_Summary.pdf

Digital Planning Transformation

07/02/2019

Future Cities Catapult, a government supported centre for the advancement of smart cities, have been researching the planning industry and looking for ways to digitalise the whole process to overcome the current flaws of a problematic system. They have identified areas of needed improvement throughout the planning process from pre-application and submission right through to the start of construction and completion. Early this week (5^th February 2019) they launched a prototype planning tool to address problems in the post-permission phase of the planning application process. The report that accompanies the release of this prototype tool, Digitising the Planning System Part 3: The Post-Permission Planning Process sets out their findings in brief and gives an overview of how the new tool, PLANtraq, will be used.

The step towards bringing the planning system into the digital age is the first of many with digital tools such as PLANtraq. It is an essential step towards creating a more dynamic and efficient planning system. If tools such as this are to be implemented correctly and effectively the individuals using them also need to bring their thinking into the 21^st century. The data being inputted and interpreted will have fundamentally not changed meaning there is still the question around how the planning system is used by individuals within local planning authorities in order to achieve the housing numbers the UK needs. It is essential the individuals within decision making roles of local planning authorities do not diffuse responsibility to the algorithms in the long run and ultimately remain/become competently in control of an integral system of society.

To find out more about the project visit the Future Cities Website here: https://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/2019/02/05/post-permission-planning/

Image: Screenshot from Digitising the Planning System report

UKs Need For Housing

17/01/2019

An article published by The Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, looks in more depth at recent ONS household figures suggesting that the data could be interpreted differently to reflect a truer picture of the UK housing market. They suggest switching attention from purely just the household to looking at the number of dwellings available per family. In short they conclude “in the first instance it is hard to escape the conclusion that as a country we have not built enough homes to keep up with population trends over the last 25 years.” The think tank also goes on to point out that if the UK was to meet the Government’s house building target of 300,000 new units a year it would take until 2028 to reach a level where housing was previously aligned with needs.

In short the targets for house building are not being met and the real need for housing within the UK will continue to worsen. The first chock hold on the UK’s housing being built is at local planning authority level; the UK’s planning system needs to have a serious shape up if the UK’s housing needs are to be achieved.

Read the full article here: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/the-one-million-missing-homes/ 

England’s Housing Supply

10/12/2018

The annual dwellings statistics for housing supply in England was published by the Government recently and shows 222,190 net additional dwellings from April 2017 to March 2018. These figures show a 2.2% increase from 2016/17 where 217,345 net additional dwellings were recorded.
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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.

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.

UK Minerals Strategy

11/10/2018

The UK mineral strategy was launched earlier this year in July and highlights the UK demand for minerals and mineral production over the next 25 years. The material flow currently in the economy in a typical day is 1 million tonnes, which is the equivalent of roughly 166,666 African bush elephants. The strategy aims to assist national and local Government and key stakeholders understand not just the scale and importance of the industry, but how best to ensure that future demand is met. It highlights this demand will be at least 5 billion tonnes, with most of it needing to be sourced from within the UK.

Read the full report here: https://mineralproducts.org/documents/UK_Minerals_Strategy.pdf

Photo: Mariusz Prusaczyk

Sustainable Quarrying

31/08/2018

Quarrying has a lot of perceived negative impacts to the environment but these are all short term and can be minimised; the long term after use of quarries can be extremely beneficial and a positive change to the initial land use before quarrying began.

Some of the negative environmental impacts quarries are linked with is the visual pollution, loss of wildlife habitats and pollution from noise and dust. These can be reduced during the process of quarrying and completely irradiated after. Reducing the visual pollution during the process is as simple as landscaping and planting trees in a design led process, once the quarry is exhausted, and during the quarrying in some areas, this planting will certainly become natural habitats for wildlife. The impact of the noise and dust pollution will also be minimised by the landscaping and planting.

The Cotswold Water Park is a great case study for how the after use of these quarries has been beneficial to the community and long term sustainability of the environment in that area. Gravel was extracted from the quarries and once exhausted turned into large lakes where fishing, sailing and other water activates can take place. The gravel is still being extracted in certain areas whilst depleted quarries are being turned into habitats for wildlife and new communities for people. Desirable housing around the new formed lakes are also created.

The symbiotic process of quarrying and after use of the quarry benefits the environment in a positive manner as long as the process is managed correctly and thoughtfully.

Letwin Report

20/08/2018

The Draft Analysis Independent Review of Build Out Rates by Sir Oliver Letwin was released at the end of June 2018 after the Prime Minister asked for an explanation to the significant gap between housing completions and land allocated or permissioned on large sites in areas of high housing demand. This draft analysis identifies what Sir Oliver Letwin et al. believe to be the causes.

The Analysis focuses on build out rates from the point of planning permission being granted and the housebuilder has an implementable consent allowing them to start construction on site; it does not take into account the stage before of achieving planning for sites. It is not fully understood why this is not being looked into as there are major areas of land within the UK which could have vast amounts of homes built out on them today if the planning system was not holding them up for various reasons. This is one fundamental area not being addressed by the Analysis and a key part of the answer to the question. Another report perhaps separate to this analysis is needed as to not detract from the findings but supplement them in order to answer this area.

Notwithstanding the planning stage the analysis does collate key findings and data into the question based on sites with implementable planning permission. The main conclusion of the report is that absorption rates can be improved by increasing the housing tenures on sites and having more choice. From the evidence gathered they have reinforced their beliefs that the homogeneity of house types on offer limits the rate at which the market will absorb the new houses and there needs to be more variety in the aesthetic characteristics of the sites.. The report also concludes that it would not be sensible to attempt to solve the problem of market absorption rates by forcing the major house builders to reduce the prices and this could be detrimental. The second half of the report touches more broadly on other key reasons for the slow delivery of housing.

Sir Oliver Letwin and his panel will submit final recommendations on improving build out rates in the autumn.

The report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-build-out-draft-analysis