From cumbersome planning consent to rising material costs, Alasdair Rankin, MD at Aitken Turnbull Architects, considers what major challenges lie ahead for the new UK Government
WE’RE nearly three weeks into the new government at Westminster. The dust has started to settle, and realities of government start to take over. Manifesto promises need to be translated into policy and strategy, funding needs to be found, or more often diverted. Like most industries we continue throughout this period, we work with and for whatever party is in government and simply have to adapt to the changes in direction and legislation as they happen.
Labour have made some big pledges around reforming planning, delivering new housing, sustainable development and changes to the rental sector. While these pledges are welcome, the key is seeing how they will be implemented and ensuring they are joined up.
The housing crisis is an obvious starting point. The lack of availability and affordability of houses is a well-known problem. For many years the major housebuilders have been criticised for delaying the delivery of these much-needed homes, however the problem is much deeper.
The planning system is slow and cumbersome, councils are underfunded and under resourced leading to delays in the approval of applications. Rising material prices, employment costs, the costs of adopting new technologies and growing developer contributions all impact the affordability of developments. The lack of, or cost of, funding can be prohibitive and all of these combined are delaying the delivery of essential housing.
Pledges to streamline and improve the planning sector are obviously welcome, however it needs more. We need a coherent and considered solution to the many different elements that impact this sector. Yes, we want to see more housing. Yes, we want homes to be affordable, accessible, sustainable, enjoyable and forming vibrant communities but we also need to be realistic all of these things cost money and without funding and the acceptance that funders and companies need to make a profit to fund and sustain the growth that is required to deliver these, or we will not make progress.
As well as housing we need a considered approach to infrastructure, to ensuring that we create communities not just dormitories. We need to find ways of making high streets and local centres vibrant and viable. Business rates and infrastructure costs need to be looked at as well as how developer contributions are calculated and spent to maximise the value they deliver.
We need to progress on the route to net zero, but we also need to accept that this will incur costs, costs to upskill, costs to develop technologies, costs to invest in wider infrastructure. We need to see genuine and fresh central investment in these from government, seed-funding to support companies who are committed to delivering these aims.
The NHS is an amazing institution, but it is chronically short on investment. The services delivered are often delivered despite the buildings and environments. The operating costs for the buildings are colossal, the annual backlog maintenance bill is huge – and growing each year as the building stock continues to age. Without wanting to rely on cheap analogies we continue to apply a sticking plaster to the problem of the estate when more intrusive surgery is required.
I don’t envy the new government, or indeed the previous one, in the scale of the challenge that they face. The overnight transition between one government and the next that is relatively unique to the UK creates significant challenges. In our industry our own political leanings don’t matter as much as a need for genuine commitment to work with the government of the day to inform and support their policies, a need for engagement and collaboration to improve the built environment.
And from the government we need the same, we need them to engage positively with the industry and its knowledge base. We need them to move on from using the built environment as a political football and instead commit to delivering long-term improvements for the country, even if they extend beyond parliamentary cycles.
