Press release

New money to build homes stalled by planning

Housing Minister announces new funding to help speed up planning decisions and help deliver, quality new homes.

From:
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (2018 to 2021) and The Rt Hon Dominic Raab
Published
24 February 2018
This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government
building plans

New funding to help speed up planning decisions and help deliver, quality new homes has been announced by Housing Minister Dominic Raab today (24 February 2018).

The first wave of the Planning Delivery Fund, totalling £15.8 million, has been awarded to enable councils to process more applications, implement new reforms and also train planners to tackle the housing challenges faced by their local area.

This funding boost will support local authorities working together on ambitious new joint local plans and core strategies, which will engage residents on how future development will take place in their areas and outline the locations suitable for new homes where demand is high.

The funding will also support greater best practice and innovation within councils as they decide planning applications, resulting in more being determined over a shorter period of time.

Money awarded to bidders will also allow local authorities to access the latest expertise on design and town planning, driving up the quality of new homes built.

Housing and Planning Minister Dominic Raab said:

This cash boost ensures councils have the resources needed to make quicker decisions on planning applications, delivering quality housing at a faster rate.

It’s part of our strategy to build the homes this country needs whilst also supporting residents to have their say on the kind of development that takes place in their area.

This first wave of funding has been split into 3 streams that will assist in delivering new homes across England: The Joint Working Fund (£9.4 million), Design Quality Fund (£4.82 million) and Promoting Innovation Fund (£1.07 million).

A total of 68 projects from Gateshead to Cornwall will receive funding from the Planning Delivery Fund across all 3 streams, from 2017 until 2019. This will help enable:

  • Bath and North East Somerset council to deliver a new master plan and implement an independent design review, receiving £310,000
  • London Borough of Hackney to implement new planning applications manager software following an award of £212,000, which will increase the rate of application decisions made
  • Dudley Metropolitan borough council to bring forward a second Black Country Joint Core Strategy, which will receive £570,000 and support the development needs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton
  • The Greater Manchester Combined Authority to deliver a new Place Team, create new Mayoral Development Corporations and provide additional resource to deliver investment and will receive £950,000

The launch of this fund will give successful councils a greater capability to implement the government’s reforms of the planning system and comes as the Ministry for Housing prepares to launch its revised National Planning Policy Framework later this spring.

Further information

See a full list of successful projects:

Planning Delivery Fund - list of successful projects

PDF, 155 KB, 1 page

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Three third party organisations were also awarded funding: the Royal Town Planning Institute (to provide training bursaries), Urban Design London (to deliver tools and training to increase capacity) and the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (to deliver a tool to promote better quality green spaces).

The successful bids make up the first wave of funding is part of the £25 million Planning Delivery Fund. Allocations of the remaining fund for the year 2019 to 2020 will be subject to a further bidding round to be announced at a future date.

The Planning Delivery Fund was initially announced in December 2017. The £15.8 million of the £25 million budget was allocated following a significant level of interest being shown by bidders, with 383 applications for funding received before the deadline of 11 January.

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Updates to this page

Published 24 February 2018