Reform’s planning policy starts to take shape
OK, so that didn’t quite go as planned.
Reform UK’s conference was intended to seize the momentum again through the focus on the first 100 days of a Reform Government. Ongoing revelations about the Party’s funding are starting to prove a major challenge as they try to grow their base of supporters, and give them a serious ‘sniff test’ problem.
However, they are still a formidable political force polling around a quarter of the electorate and so it’s worth looking behind the headlines at some of their emerging policy positions, of which planning was one.
When policy ideas are at their earlier stage they are typically set out in a Green Paper. Reform’s policies have been published in a Teal Paper (a good, alternative name if you want to avoid promoting one of your political opponents).
There is heavy emphasis on the use of brownfield land for building new homes but, beyond this, one word runs through it like a stick of rock – deregulation. Planning requirements off the list for brownfield development would include: Affordable housing for any scheme outside London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds; CIL payments, S106 payments, BNG and habitats requirements.
What is interesting for me is what this says about the electoral coalition they want to build. Alongside previous announcements about funding for major new affordable housing schemes and changes to social housing eligibility, their planning policy helps them to develop their narrative for its supporters in the ‘Red Wall’ of former industrial areas in the Midlands and North – where their main opponents are Labour. At Reform’s conference Richard Tice, the Party’s Deputy Leader who also holds their Planning and Development brief, stated that their policy would help hollowed out town centres – such as in Boston, his own constituency – where traditional businesses have fallen to Amazon’s lower prices and convenience.
Their brownfield-first approach also gives them an argument to deploy in rural areas where they have been supplanting the Tories, such as Kent, Essex and Lincolnshire. In these areas there is still significant resistance to development on greenfield sites.
These policy announcements now give our industry greater clarity about the electoral coalition that Reform hope to build up and their ‘pitch’ for their votes.
Blog by Gabriel Abulafia
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