§ The Earl of Shrewsburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the current rise in the cost of land for housing development, they have any plans to relax planning restrictions, in order to prevent any boom in prices of private housebuilding.
Viscount St. DavidsResearch commissioned by the Department of the Environment to assess the effect of planning policies on land supply, and hence on house prices, came to the conclusion that land would need to be released on a large scale, over a wide area and over a long period of time in order to have any significant effect on house prices. Independent research, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation from Glen Bramley, of the School for Advanced Urban Studies of Bristol University, came to a similar conclusion.
To ensure an adequate supply of land for housing, the Government advise local planning authorities to ensure the availability of five years' supply of housing land, judged against the general scale and location of development provided for in approved structure and adopted locals. The Government have emphasised that this land should be genuinely available in practical terms. This means that sites must not only be free, or readily freed, from planning, physical and ownership constraints, but must also be capable of being developed economically, be in areas where potential housebuyers want to live and be suitable for the wide range of housing types the market requires.
The latest data (March 1992) show that there was a total of 32,800 hectares with planning permission providing for 805,600 dwellings. This represents about 5½ 5 years' supply at average housebuilding rates in the last decade. So there is plenty of opportunity for the housebuilding industry to respond to any rapid increase in demand for new houses without needing to modify our planning policy in the way suggested.