No new regulation for three years, demands commission led by ex-housing minister

Gavin Barwell, who is the chair of Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation and Theresa May’s former chief of staff, has called for no new rules for developers for three years and wants a firm commitment from government that it will not impose rent controls.

The Prosper UK Housing Commission, a group of industry experts chaired by Barwell, has published a report this week titled: Solving the Housing Crisis: A Plan to Make Homes More Affordable in Every Postcode.

The report’s findings align with the prevailing market wisdom that the twin challenges of affordability on the buyer side and viability on the developer side are the reasons for sluggish housing delivery across the country.

Since 2020, the cost of building a single home has risen by £76,000, according to Prosper. Half of this is due to the regulatory burden shouldered by developers.

As a result, the group is calling for a three-year period during which no new regulation will be introduced. The hope is that a more certain regulatory environment will increase market confidence.

Prosper welcomed Labour’s plan to introduce help for first-time buyers with the Your First Home initiative and the Conservative’s promise to reform the Section 106 system, but said more needs to be done to address a crisis that has been building for 50 years.

Gavin Barwell, chair of the Prosper UK Housing Commission, said: “I’m pleased that even before the report is published the government has adopted one of our recommendations and the Conservatives have said they would implement another, but our recommendations are not ‘Pick N Mix’.

“Boosting demand without increasing supply will help a few people at the expense of everyone else, and tackling viability without tackling demand will make little difference. That is the view of the diverse group of industry experts who produced this report.”

The Commission’s recommendations include:

• Viability – A freeze on new regulatory burdens for at least three years, a two-part test for every obligation on new housing (whether the cost belongs on new homes and whether it is proportionate) and limiting section 106 to what a development itself needs

• Demand – A temporary, strictly targeted shared equity scheme for first-time buyers of new, energy-efficient homes, capped at around a fifth of sales on each site and funded by an industry access fee

• Supply – A National Planning Service to decide major applications and a national review of the Green Belt, keeping land that stops towns and cities sprawling and merging and releasing the rest; and higher density as standard, with more homes on each site

• Renting – cutting stamp duty on build-to-rent developments, a standard national template for their section 106 agreements and ruling out rent controls in law to restore investor confidence; and a public build-to-rent programme pairing public landowners with BTR developers to build more homes for the social rent sector.

Barwell added: “Despite its welcome reforms of the planning system and funding for affordable housing, the government is falling far short of its ambition to build 1.5m homes in five years, and the latest figures, particularly in London, are little short of catastrophic.

“The victims are all around us. A few are sleeping rough, but most are hidden, stuck in temporary accommodation or unable to buy a home as their parents did. Our housing crisis has been building for nearly 50 years and there is no silver bullet. Some of what we recommend won’t be popular, but unless we attack the problem from every angle it will only get worse.”

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