On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
We welcome the proposal to increase planning application fees. However, our modelling has shown that even if all application fees were uplifted by 35 per cent, the overall national shortfall for 2020/21 would have remained above £80 million. Councils must have the flexibility to set planning fees at local level to cover their costs relating to planning, which could include the employment of additional qualified planners. This would put councils in a stronger position to address the skills and capacity challenges in planning departments.
While we welcome the measures in the Bill, we have significant concerns about the capacity of councils’ housing teams to undertake all of the new responsibilities that are proposed. It will be vital for Government to fully fund the measures for them to be effective.
In order to tackle the national housing shortage, councils need to be empowered to build more affordable, good quality homes at scale, and fast, where these are locally needed.
Councils have a proud history of welcoming new arrivals so that they can build new lives in the UK and have huge range of expertise that has informed the development and delivery of that support.
As we highlighted to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, councils have been concerned for some time now that a minority of exempt accommodation providers operating across the country fall short in providing good quality, personalised support for people in vulnerable circumstances.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities held a consultation on reforms to national planning policy between 22 December 2022 and 2 March 2023. The consultation sought views on proposals to develop new and revise current national planning policy.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities held a consultation on the Building Safety Levy between 22 November 2022 and 7 February 2023. The consultation sought views on the design and implementation of the Levy.
We welcome the opportunity to comment on the proposed technical changes to homelessness legislation following Renter’s Reform as this may have an impact on the way homelessness services carry out their duties.
Councils are committed to working with Government and developers to meet the Government’s aspirations of 300,000 new homes per year, with land for more than 2.6 million homes allocated in Local Plans.
The LGA broadly welcomes the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, which would make provision about the regulation of supported exempt accommodation; make provision about local authority oversight of, and enforcement powers relating to, the provision of supported exempt accommodation; and for connected purposes.