According to Planning Resource (Alex King, 13 October 2025); ‘’The Treasury looking at a second bill’, source confirms, amid opposition from housing ministry, a spat between MHCLG and the Treasury is live. It appears that some in power think that current draft legislation passing through parliament is not enough. Not enough to start the revolution in building the homes needed, the infrastructure needed and the economic growth needed. Well, I can endorse these doubts. Right now the government thinks tinkering with the broken system will suffice. It won’t. Private sector developers and landowners must be de-throned. Local councils, despite their inexperience, must be elevated. Scary but unavoidable. Current draft planning policies are not enough to deliver the reversal in roles that must happen.
Instead the proposed changes in the current bill will massively disappoint. Until the government has the courage to grasp the nettle, actually the spatial nettles, it must pluck expect disappointment, disappointment, disappointment. Currently changes are mostly only about good intentions. Watch these slowly sink into the bottomless swamp of resistance to change in the next three years.. You cannot do a reversal of systems, processes and procedures constructed on a deeply rooted culture with 50 years mesh of fine growth in one, two or three years: however worthy and necessary the outcomes. At least not in a democratic system with lots of checks and balances: the keys to our revered and liked system of slow and trusted change. It constantly amazes me how blind we are. So let’s just look again at the barriers that must be overcome to achieve change by pivoting on a penny. Because it is a big deal; because vested interests will resist; because councils are hopelessly callow.
- local land owners. Either their cooperation or their acquiescence tor changing the system is pre-requisite. Neither will be obtained by threats to acquire their land in the short-term, ie. -10 years, at less than full open market value. If they own hope value, they must get it.
- local residents/local leaders. They do not see where they or their community will benefit, so why cooperate? After all, their experience is that change is a one way road, leading in the wrong direction. Simply, sell the benefits.
- conservationists. Building is bad, accelerating climate change. Correct, so build communities that incentivise public transport and penalise cars: yes you can have one, and pay annually and daily for the privilege. Building destroys the local beauty given to us by nature. Correct, so do what other countries did in the past: do better than nature. Go to rural Tuscany and see the hill villages and valley towns. Sacrilege to damage the invisible literary heritage because ‘X’ lived. and wrote here. Good alibi, for a new history tour.
- greenbelt, AONB, SSI’s, green gap. Great, let us turn it all into public open space. So long as landowners privacy, and overheads are fully recompensed. But this one to needs a lengthy introductory phase; at least 10+ years. We all need lots of new open air, open space and rural tranquility. Driving past green belt fields I can see on a map, but cannot walk across without being accused of trespassing does not turn me on. And you?
- immigration, ageing population or just bigger homes. Why is there a growing demand for new homes? When will this surge in housing demand come to an end? After all, one day politicians will once balance immigration and emigration. Are we really all living longer, and clogging up the housing supply pipelines too long? Anyway it will stop. Yes, it will. And as for people wanting bigger homes, not second homes, is this a disgrace or is it progress? After all, many of our newest ones are tiny. Is this good enough for our kids?
- goofy governance. We don’t want too much council interference in our lives, but surely it is our councillors, not land owners who decide where to build, or not build? No? Nonsense, What is the ‘call for sites’ (cfs) system? I am a local resident, and I want my local leaders to do what I asked them to do, not tell me they do not have the power or the finance. Agriculture land is worth, they say, is worth ten or twenty thousand pounds per acre. And with consent is it 100x or is it 1000x more? Just get on with it. You say you cannot make long term, civic policies because political opponents will oppose them at the next election. Well, one take them to court for failing in their civic duty and two ask the other politicians what they are playing at. What are local priorities? Party labels or civic responsibility?
- media misinformation. we live in a world of social media and written media and visual media. They thrive on the contentious, the trivia and the short lived. Try the opposite. Highlight the others point of view, with answers. No one trusts politicians. May sure local media trusts local leaders.
These are random names for some of the barriers to progress..There are others. The point is that it is hopelessly unrealistic to expect short sighted trader developers to deliver for local councils with social and community agenda councils local spatial policies. . Private sector actors will not it, regardless of their claims to the contrary. They might even be sued by shareholders for not milking every commercial litre out of the system. Likewise only local councils know where and when they want future land use change to go, and how heart broken communities can be if it does go to the wrong location. This means local councils intentionally playing the long term time advantage long term public sector bodies enjoy, and private sector actors lack. This time card, the joker policy if you like, matters, from a negotiating point of view. In fact it matters a lot.
My conclusion: despite all the natural concerns about local councils lack of development skills is as soon as possible they must take back control of the master planning of their areas. They must bin the call for sites system. They must prioritise their future at scale spatial vision, and having done so actively buy sites within those areas so when these sites are needed, 10 or more years ahead, their own communities through shrewd foresight capture the uplift in land value their development control decisions release.
So what must the government do now? It must ensure all leading Westminster political parties acknowledge that none of them alone has the power, or the lifespan to deliver long term land use policies except by working together. Introducing and then delivering this policy will be their first test of spatial competence. The prize will be investors, keen to help deliver homes and infrastructure long overdue with local support.
Ian Campbell
13 October 2025
