There’s a particularly irritating argument you frequently spot in stories about people – I shan’t call them Nimbys; apparently that’s a slur now – opposing building projects near them. Here’s a good example now, from a BBC news story about a proposed logistics park in Suffolk: “I think local planning is all done just to give local people the illusion that their opinion counts, because what they’ve done is inconsiderate and disrespectful.” Or consider this Guardian report of a public meeting last autumn, packed with people outraged at the idea that the All England Tennis Club, host of Wimbledon, might build more courts on a [checks notes] private golf course.
Can you see the hand wave, the trick of the mind people slip into so naturally they don’t even realise they’re doing it? They’re saying they’re not being listened to, when what they actually mean is they’re not given a veto. (“Listening” does not have to entail agreement.) Planning decisions are more extensively consulted on than almost any other state activity: few in government are going around actively asking for your views regarding every slight change to the health service or matters of war and peace. Yet these attempts to solicit opinions don’t make people feel like they’re listened to: it somehow does the opposite.
This may be one reason why the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill, finally published last week, is moving to reduce the points at which the “blockers” Keir Starmer has taken on can stick their oar in. The number of opportunities to challenge nationally significant infrastructure projects in the courts will be reduced from three to two; the most vexatious challenges, those judged “totally without merit”, will be restricted to once.
There’s more. The government is also looking into cutting the number of “statutory consultees”, bodies who are legally required to offer advice on planning decisions: Sport England, the Theatres Trust and the Garden History Society all do sterling work, I’m sure, but none of them have an incentive to worry about pesky things like housing provision or growth, so their advice has been known to be one-sided. The establishment of a Nature Restoration Fund meanwhile is meant to make it possible for developers to make good the environmental cost of their schemes without having to find a way to do it on the exact same site. That alone could potentially unlock as many as 160,000 homes currently blocked by Natural England’s rules on “nutrient neutrality”.
This bill is not the only reform through which the government is trying to reduce the avenues through which Nimbys (sorry) can Nimby. Decisions over smaller planning matters are being passed from councillors to planning officers (they’ll be better resourced, apparently, through higher fees and mandatory training). Where local plans can be interpreted in multiple ways, elected politicians have an incentive to prioritise the interpretation favoured by existing locals rather than theoretical future beneficiaries. That interpretation will, quite often, be “No”.
Then there’s brownfield planning passports; changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to boost housing targets and allocate low-quality green belt as “grey belt”; local development orders around commuter stations, making it easier to build on the sites which have the best transport links (and which will also, incidentally, do the least environmental damage)… You’re probably exhausted reading all this.
It’s a lot. But many experts seem unconvinced it’ll be enough for the government to hit its targets, even so. It’s not clear these reforms will be enough to encourage the handful of big box housebuilders to significantly ramp up build rates, potentially in defiance of their own financial interests, or to increase competition enough that we’re no longer dependent on them doing so. The Institute for Government has warned that “many other factors, from interest rates and market incentives to the availability of the skilled workforce and materials needed, are also critical” if the government is to build the 1.5 million homes or make the 150 decisions on major infrastructure projects it promised. (The Centre for Cities has estimated that the UK is actually 4.3 million homes short, but let’s not worry about that right now.)
If the government was feeling really ambitious – or, alternatively, really worried about missing its targets – there is even more it could do. Some housing analysts argue that the biggest change would be to introduce “zoning” policies like the one being applied to land besides commuter stations over much broader areas. That could encourage suburban densification, allowing more homes to be built in already populated areas (so long as they aren’t radically out of step with local plans, of course). More small building projects could mean a more competitive housebuilding market, too.
But they’d also risk spreading the political pain, and frequent stories of furious local planning meetings from US cities that already have zoning policies suggest that may not be a panacea anyway. It’s one thing to reduce the blockers’ powers to object; it’s quite another to persuade them that what other people build up the road is not really any of their business. Nimbyism, slur or not, may be inevitable.
[See more: What went wrong for Kemi Badenoch?]
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