GB News presenter Tom Harwood delivered his analysis of Labour’s “incredibly technical” new housing proposal to accelerate building on brownfield sites in urban areas.
The government has proposed what they call a ‘planning passport’ where new buildings which meet pre-agreed design and quality standards would automatically be approved by local authorities.
In an exclusive video, Harwood said: “Lots of people are saying that there’s a conundrum of this government. They want to deliver profound change, but they’ve got no money with which to do it.
“Well, of course they’re likely going to raise some of our taxes in just a month’s time at the budget. But is there another cunning way that Rachel Reeves can actually deliver great big reform to this country that actually improves all of our lives?”
Watch: Tom Harwood shares analysis of Labour housing proposal with GB News Members
Harwood continued: “Well, the Labour Party has announced a pretty profound policy what they’re calling a planning passport. It’s incredibly technical, but what the Labour Party is proposing is that instead of having to seek individual planning permissions for every single individual development within land that has already been built on, they could streamline that process fundamentally.
“What would that look like? Well, for brownfield land, they suggest creating design codes where local communities come together and say what should be allowed to be built, and that’s all approved beforehand.
“So if you own a bit of land that has previously been built on, you can have automatic approval to build something that fits that preordained design code. This could be economically transformational because at the moment we’ve got this very unpredictable system of individual permissions trying to get planning permission. The process can be very arduous. Developers don’t know what the rules are.”
“Could it change with simple rules based and almost zoning system, but only for land that already been built on?” Harwood questioned.
He continued: “That’s the big proposal. That’s the big planning passport. In some ways, it’s similar to what Robert Jenrick and Boris Johnson proposed back at the start of the Boris Johnson administration. They had a white paper out called the planning for the future White Paper. It proposed putting a zoning system across the whole country, not just the areas that have already been built on, but of course, that was all thrown out after it caused a bit of controversy, specifically after a by election in Chesham and Amersham.
“So they abandoned their attempts at planning reform. The Labour Party is doing it in a more particular way.
“The big proposal would leave the same discretionary system for greenfields and undeveloped lands, but for land that had previously been built on it would be much, much easier to build.
“You would have automatic permission if you built within these design codes a profound change and something that could genuinely put rocket boosters beneath the UK economy.”
To conclude, Harwood warned that there is a catch with Labour’s plans as the proposals have been released “quietly”, there is a lot of detail to be worked through and it will take a long time to come into effect.
Harwood explained: “It could raise a lot of cash and build a lot of homes, but the detail will be needed to be worked through.
“They’ve released this proposal quietly last night. It might be some time before we see what it actually looks like in statute.”