In this final blog based on the Civic Voice Manifesto 2024 – 2028 we focus on planning and housing.
Housing and Planning
Civic Voice members support the Government’s ambition to tackle the housing crisis, with 71% agreeing in 2021 that we need to build more homes. If so much power in the housing supply remains with commercial housebuilders whose activities are determined entirely by market forces, we will never meet the 300,000-target set down by the Government. We need to do much more to ‘front load’ support for communities in their engagement earlier in the planning process.
To demonstrate its commitment to ‘best in class’ engagement, we call on a new Government to adopt the proposal in the Government’s Communities Framework published in July 2019 to ‘strengthen community involvement in local placemaking… through a planning system centred on community involvement with statutory rights to become involved at every stage from plan making to planning application.’
We believe that Statements of Community Involvement could be the bedrock of community involvement but, unfortunately, far too many have become too long, out-of-date and out-of-touch documents. We recommend that the Government implement policies and incentives to promote early engagement between communities, developers, promoters, and Local Planning Authorities. Provide guidance and frameworks for constructive dialogue and collaboration from the outset of planning processes.
To quote the UK 2070 Commission, ‘Currently, the future of the UK is being shaped by the incremental, short-term and ad hoc nature of government policy’. We should not be looking for popular decisions but for good and appropriate decisions and the right solutions. We support the UK 2070 Commission’s call for a national spatial plan. Civic Voice believes that once we have a national spatial strategy which sets national priorities, then within that framework we would have regional or sub-regional planning, and then a network of Local Plans, and Neighbourhood Plans.
Prioritise the development and enforcement of high-quality design standards that enhance local character and meet community needs. Provide funding and incentives for local authorities to adopt and enforce these standards.
We must invest in social housing. We must address the problem of affordability by providing major resources or access to finance to enable much more social and other affordable housing to be built. We know that public finances are still restricted, but the lack of homes is a major infrastructure need as urgent, if not more so, as high-speed train lines or airports.
To support the above, we need a fully resourced local government sector. We call on the Government to give all councils funding to appoint dedicated community planning officers with the appropriate skills to work with communities and rebuild trust in the planning process.
The Coventry Society has adopted this manifesto and we will do our best to support it. We call on the candidates for the three parliamentary constituencies in Coventry to commit to the aims of this manifesto and advocate for action to create a city that we can have pride in.
You can download the full Civic Voice manifesto here.