Prop-arazzi

With Cheltenham rained off until tomorrow we thought we would have a quick listen into today’s activity at the House of Commons, and what do you know - IT’S BUDGET DAY. Making his first Budget speech to the House, Chancellor Darling outlined the following with reference to the housing and property sector. He said:

• ‘The Government will spend £8 billion on new, affordable and social housing over the next 3 years. This will enable the Housing Corporation to deliver 70,000 affordable new homes each year by 2010/11
• From this April, key workers and first time buyers will be able to borrow money from new shared equity schemes
• Stamp duty on shared ownership homes will not be required until buyers own 80% of the equity in their home
• Following today’s publication of the review of housing finance in the UK, the Government will seek how they can deliver the right framework for the UK to achieve affordable, long-term fixed rate mortgages. The Chancellor will report back at the Pre-Budget Report
• The Government is committed to building 3 million more homes by 2020. Sites for 70,000 more homes have been identified’.

Come back soon for the fall out and reaction to the Budget…
Give us a call if you would like the full SP on the Budget on 020 7067 0000 or log on to www.wsknowledgeshop.com

On Friday The London Assembly’s planning and spatial development committee published a report on the use of Section 106 Agreements …. so we thought we would take a look at it for you.

Key points:

- The planning system is designed to balance development with the economic, social and environmental effects on the wider community. Section 106 (S106) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ensures local authorities can acquire contributions from developers to both secure the infrastructure needed to support their new development(s) and also to mitigate the impact of the development. These contributions can be both financial contributions and also benefits in kind.

- Direct financial payments to London boroughs could exceed £1 billion in the next ten years with hundreds of millions more in terms of ‘in kind’ benefits such as new affordable homes, improvements to the public transport network and new open spaces provided directly by developers themselves.
 
- The LA review has found that developers generally support having to contribute to ‘mitigate’ the effects of their proposals. But, they also need to be clear what is likely to be expected of them at an early stage of the process – and even before they apply for planning permission – to calculate whether their development can be viable.

- The skills and resources of the local authorities and their staff involved in negotiating S106 are hugely important, yet one third of boroughs do not think they have enough staff devoted to S106. This problem is compounded by high staff turnover, which is increasing, and means that experience is lost to the organisation: Boroughs need to have not only staff with adequate skills to negotiate S106 – they need to have enough of them devoted to this particular aspect of the planning process.
 
- The LA recommend that boroughs and universities set up some form of formal post qualification and training specifically aimed at improving S106 skills.
 
- The LA also recommend the boroughs and Mayor think about pulling together those local authority planners, valuers and lawyers who already have the widest range of experience of the most complex planning agreements and making their skills available to the rest of London when they are needed.
 
- The LA feels there would be merit in ring fencing some of the S106 monies to direct towards training for planning officers in negotiation skills: Ultimately this could be self-financing if better skilled staff were able to lever in more S106 funds as a result of better training and skills.
 
- Outside the professionals there is an important role for the local councillor and the communities that they represent. They are the ones who should be aware of potential applications that may have negative impacts for their local area. They should also be involved in developing priorities for any money that S106 may generate and making sure that agreements are upheld and the money is spent.

- Government guidance quite clearly states that councillors and communities should be more involved in devising policies for managing planning obligations through Statements of Community Involvement.

- Boroughs must do more to ensure that councillors and the community have sufficient knowledge of the S106 process and the available information about what is going on. There must be a policy that is in place and clearly communicated to the community that makes the process transparent and accessible for those who want to be involved.

- Boroughs should prioritise the monitoring of S106 agreements. They should also make available, in a simple and accessible format, all details of signed S106 agreements along with the regular monitoring reports of how those agreements are being implemented.

- From now on it is not just the boroughs in London that will decide planning applications and negotiate S106 agreements. The GLA Act 2007 gives the Mayor new planning powers that will allow him to take over and determine small numbers of applications that have potential strategic importance for London. Details of these planning powers are still being finalised but it is expected that they will come into effect in April 2008.

- While there has been no formal statement from the Mayor about exactly how he will exercise his new planning powers, including his policy and priorities for S106 negotiations, the Committee expects the Mayor to act in a way that reflects our calls for boroughs to increase transparency and accountability throughout the process.

The first Cereal Networking event of 2008 proved to be a real success yesterday morning.  Liz Peace, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation, delivered her views on the challenges facing the property market in 2008 to an audience which included senior representatives of Land Securities, DP9, RICS, Teacher Stern Selby, Turley Associates and many others.

Following her assesment of the challenges, Liz expanded on:

• the challenges and opportunities for the property industry and new Minister for Housing and Planning, Caroline Flint
• the perception that in the past the property industry has made too much money (!)
• Changes to leasecode and valuation systems
• The property industry under the Conservatives
• What might be in the budget - which will be held during MIPIM week
• The role and scope of Brussells and the European Property Federation
• Stamp Duty evasion and VAT codes
• The London Mayor’s new powers and the implications for London Boroughs.

Watch this space for details of the next Cereal Networking event.

Yesterday the Department of Health launched Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives, a strategy to tackle the burgeoning obesity problem in the UK.  The report includes plans to promote walking and cycling around towns, using the built environment to galvanise the whole community into a healthier community.

The initiative will be backed up by targeted funds and a raft of new NICE recommendations which call for new developments to prioritise the need to be physically active.  In addition planners will be given training on promoting physical activity and local authorities will be encouraged to support the vision of a more active society.

The question is will it really change the way we build?

Shortly after Nick Clegg MP was voted in as the new Liberal Democrat leader he has made Lembit Opik MP the new party spokesperson for Housing. As the only MP in the House that brings a unique blend of Welsh, Northern Irish, Estonian and Britishness in one member we wish him all the very best for his new position.

At midnight last night the rule to ensure that houses over a certain threshold (4 bedrooms) in England and Wales had a Home Information Pack (HIP) was extended to one and two bedroom properties being put up for sale.

One great benefit that a HIPs pack include for the first time will be an A-G green rating (seen above) for  properties which will help cut fuel bills and carbon emissions through Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).

Shooting from the hip (sorry) the critics are panning the spread of the packs reach as they say they are a waste of money (about £300 - £350) and hold up sales but the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) claim that it will ‘knock speculative sellers from the market’ which in light of the current housing trend can only be a good thing.
 

Next Tuesday (18th) Kettering Conservative MP, Philip Hollobone MP will be tabling a Westminster Hall Debate right before winter recess on the issue of house building and infrastructure. We’ll have a brief synopsis next week.

Conservative Member of Parliament for Sevenoaks, Michael Fallon MP,  has proposed a bill in the House of Commons  to give councils the right to implement the so called ‘Merton rule’ which will enshrine in law the rights of councils to insist that developments meet a certain amount of their energy needs from onsite renewable sources.

According to Building magazine the policies have been proposed by about 100 councils but as yet does not have the backing of the Government.

The 13.12.07 marks a new land mark in the history of Northern Ireland, no not ANOTHER peace accord, no not ANOTHER nobel peace prize winner unveiled, but the opening of the first EVER IKEA store on the island of Ireland. The crowds expected will be so large that some of the PSNI crowd control officers have had to go to Spain to brush up on their riot control skills - which is rather bizarre as they are from a city that has kinda made a name for itself in that department.

Here at Weber Shandwick we carried out the planning and public affairs work prior to the granting of planning permission by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain MP. Our office in Dublin is currently working for the Swedish gaint ahead of the second store in Dublin due to open in 2008 and we wish them every success.

On Thursday NI might flip up on its side as the weight of many thousands focus on the new east Belfast store beside George Best City Airport. The above the line advertising for IKEA has been massive, everywhere you turn in Belfast, there is a billboard filled with the yellow and blue corporate colours, every NI webpage has an online advert and every NI paper has double page spreads of sofas, cups and the kitchen sink. Recently 600, 000 IKEA catalogues have been delivered to the salivating public - the region has been blitzed.

Belfast has never seen the likes of this of late. IKEA frenzy has gripped us all firmly by the swedish meatballs - yes, also available in store by the way. 

Well after yesterday’s budget, Finance Minister Brian Cowan did unveil major stamp duty changes in a bid to boost confidence in property and the economy in the Republic of Ireland. His reform of the stamp duty system will mean that:

The first 125,000 euro of any residential property purchase will be exempt from stamp duty. The balance for houses costing less than 1 million euro will be taxed at 7 per cent rising to 9 per cent for houses over the 1 million euro mark. So in layman speak, a couple buying a home costing say, 370,000 euro will pay over 5, 000 euro less in stamp duty, not bad. For many hard working Irish people this could be the difference between being able to buy a house or having to live with mum and dad well into their late twenties - and nobody wants that!

Meanwhile in the UK we wait with anticipation to see what the Bank of England will do later this morning in terms of cutting interest rates after what The Times reports as the worst run of losses in the property market for more than a decade.