Land & Rural Manifesto overview

Land & Resources

Our land and natural resources form the bedrock of our society. They are the primary livelihood and development asset for many people, providing a foundation for poverty reduction, increased food security, and economic opportunity across the length and breadth of the UK.

At the same time, a healthy and vibrant natural environment is integral to ensuring a resilient ecosystem, while also playing a key role in the development of our towns and cities. As such, we recognise the interdependency of urban and rural land functions in fulfilling sustainable development objectives.

We face ever increasing pressures on our limited supply of land. As well as maintaining food and energy security, land use change will be required to build new housing and infrastructure, to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and to protect 30% of the UK’s land by 2030. The UK government has committed to publish a land use framework and RICS would remind all parties of the collaborative report Finding common ground: Integrating data, science and innovation for better use of land - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Land is a finite resource that is facing increasing and competing multifunctional demands for energy, food, housing, major infrastructure, climate change and improving resilience in the face of global challenges. High level goals have been adopted by the UN in the Sustainable Development Goals and adhered to by the UK government in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) one of the key policy measures for achieving development which the NPPF defines as sustainable.

Striking the right balance between protecting our natural environment and developing it for the future is a key challenge in the political sphere in this coming election. Below is the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) response to this critical sector, looking at the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos and their response to planning, development and the natural environment.

Conservative Manifesto

• Abolishing the legacy EU ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules to immediately unlock the building of 100,000 new homes with local consent, with developers required in law to pay a one-off mitigation fee so there is no net additional pollution.
• Delivering a record number of homes each year on brownfield land in urban areas by
  • providing a fast-track route through the planning system for new homes on previously developed land in the 20 largest cities.
  • Strong design codes will ensure this enables the gentle densification of urban areas, with new family homes and mansion-blocks on tree-lined streets built in the local character.
  • The Conservatives will look at extending ‘full expensing’ to the delivery of brownfield housing.
• Raising density levels in inner London to those of European cities like Paris and Barcelona. Ensure the London Plan delivers more family homes a year, forcing the Mayor to plan for more homes on brownfield sites, like underused industrial land. The Conservatives will regenerate major sites like Euston, Old Oak Common and Thamesmead.
• Unlocking new urban regeneration schemes, by creating locally-led urban development corporations in partnership with the private sector and institutional investors. The Conservatives will support the delivery of new quarters in Leeds, Liverpool and York alongside working with local leaders and the community to seize the opportunity of our ambitious Cambridge 2050 plan.
• Supporting local and smaller builders by requiring councils to set land aside for them and lifting Section 106 burdens on more smaller sites, while ruling out Labour’s proposed ‘community right to appeal’.
• Making sure local authorities use the new Infrastructure Levy to deliver the GP surgeries, roads and other local infrastructure needed to support homes. The Conservatives will not allow these funds to be spent on community projects that bear no relation to support for new homes.
• Retaining our cast-iron commitment to protect the Green Belt
• Reform our planning system to deliver fast track permissions for the building of infrastructure on farms, such as glasshouses, slurry and grain stores, and small-scale reservoirs.
• Give our high streets a new lease of life and restore pride in place. The Conservatives will change planning laws to support places to bring back local market days and regenerate defunct shopping centres. The Conservatives will continue to make industry pay for removing chewing-gum from streets and raise the fines utility firms must pay when they create ‘street scars’ by not properly restoring roads and pavements after their works are completed. The Conservatives will make fly tipping an offence that carries penalty points against your driving licence.
• Cut red tape that holds back the planting of trees in the planning system. This will identify particularly suitable areas for tree planting where processes and permits will be streamlined.
• The Conservatives will speed up the average time it takes to sign off major infrastructure projects from four years to one.
• Introduce reforms to outdated EU red tape to better protect nature while enabling the building of new homes, new prisons and new energy schemes. Along with the reforms to the EU’s bureaucratic environmental impact assessment regime that the Conservatives have already started, these changes will speed up local and national infrastructure planning systems.
• Ensure any requirements to offset the impact of new infrastructure and homes on an area are proportionate, without compromising environmental outcomes.
• Reduce the cost of infrastructure by allowing quicker changes to consented projects.
• Ensure National Policy Statements are regularly updated.
• Focus the role of statutory consultees in the planning system on improving projects in line with clearer objectives, rather than piecemeal requirements that add delays.
• End frivolous legal challenges that frustrate infrastructure delivery by amending the law so judicial reviews that don’t have merit do not waste court time

RICS response

Planning reform is a central part of the Conservative proposals for a future government, with a focus on major infrastructure and housing delivery, protections for farmers and high-street renewal.

RICS welcomes the focus on the speeding up the planning system by reducing bureaucracy, cutting red-tape and incentivising building on certain types of land. This is clear to see when looking at the Conservatives plans for the brown belt, with the commitment to extend ‘full expensing’ to the delivery of brownfield housing. While further detail is needed, this focus on providing incentives to build on brownfield land is both necessary and welcome.

RICS, unfortunately, does not think the Conservatives’ plans for delivering homes and a vibrant natural environment through necessary planning reform will meet this immense challenge. For example, when looking at the Conservative plans for land value uplift, RICS would have several concerns, as seen when looking at their plans to remove S106 on smaller sites as this would mean depriving rural areas of a strong and viable route to delivering affordable housing. This concern extends to the ambition to implement an Infrastructure Levy.

RICS would support an evidence-led review of the existing green belt policy. Green belt release should be considered in the context of development which is planned alongside existing and proposed infrastructure programmes to ensure maximum economic and social value is gained from development on former green belt land. 

Finally, RICS does not support the Conservative Party’s weakening of nutrient neutrality protections and objected when the UK Government proposed this last year. Instead, RICS would prefer to see targeted responses to nutrient neutrality based on specific circumstances considering both agriculture and development.

Labour Manifesto

• Update the National Policy Planning Framework, including restoring mandatory housing targets.
• Planning authorities have up-to-date Local Plans and reform and strengthen the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
• Support local authorities by funding additional planning officers, through increasing the rate of the stamp duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents.
• where necessary Labour will not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need.
• Take a brownfield first approach, by fast-tracking approval of urban brownfield sites.
• Labour will take a more strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places.
• The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised and Labour will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature.
• Build a new generation of new towns, these will form part of a series of large-scale new communities across England.
• Labour will introduce effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning.
• Labour will require all Combined and Mayoral Authorities to strategically plan for housing growth in their areas. Labour will give Combined Authorities new planning powers along with new freedoms and flexibilities to make better use of grant funding.
• further reform compulsory purchase compensation rules to improve land assembly, speed up site delivery, and deliver housing, infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits in the public interest.
• take steps to ensure that for specific types of development schemes, landowners are awarded fair compensation rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission.
• Labour will strengthen planning obligations to ensure new developments provide more affordable homes.
• Labour will implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality without weakening environmental protections.

RICS response

A key pledge from Labour is that they are the “builders, not the blockers”, and this manifesto in relation to planning and development aims to convey that statement, with planning reform promoted prominently throughout.

On Labour’s plans for brownfield development, RICS welcomes the renewed focus on brownfield development, focus on the ‘grey belt’ and limited areas of green belt release, particularly to help alleviate housing pressures in urban environments. However, to ensure a holistic response to tackling the housing crisis, this must include a full evidence-led review of the Green Belt, to transparently consider the benefits and trade-offs that apply to its current operation.

RICS supports the creation of new woodlands and the planting of “millions” of trees (though more detail is needed as tree planting targets have traditionally been missed) and the pledge to expand nature-rich habitats such as wetlands and peat bogs and RICS would welcome more detail on how this connects with their proposed land use framework and the better use of data and evolving technology. Efforts to reform compulsory purchase must involve engagement with practitioners who can offer insight into existing methods and practices and inform policy development. RICS is engaging with the Law Commission and DLUHC and advising of our views on this important topic.

RICS also supports the Labour Party’s focus on reversing some changes with the National Policy Planning Framework, particularly around reinstating mandatory housing targets. This is something RICS has called for in our response to the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework Reform consultation. RICS is surprised by the lack of mention of reforms to land value capture, i.e. CIL and Section 106 agreements, given that planning reform is such a central component of the manifesto. This is something RICS has called for repeatedly, as seen in our response to the Infrastructure Levy consultation, and using our members’ expertise in this area, RICS aim to support a future government’s policy development in this area.

In addition, there are areas that will require further detail, such as the reference to implementing ‘solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality without weakening environmental protections’ and the awarding of landowners ‘fair compensation’ which implies changes to the Land Compensation Act 1961.

Liberal Democrat Manifesto

• Increasing building of new homes to 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns.
• Make planning work for our natural environment and ensure that developers pay their fair share by:
  • Ensuring new developments result in significant net gain for biodiversity, with up to a 100% net gain for large developments.
  • Introducing a strategic Land and Sea Use Framework to effectively balance competing demands on our land and oceans.
  • Empowering Local Nature Recovery Strategies to identify a new Wild Belt for nature’s recovery.
• Expanding Neighbourhood Planning across England.
• Building ten new garden cities.
• Allowing councils to buy land for housing based on current use value rather than on a hope-value basis by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961.
• Properly funding local planning departments to improve planning outcomes and ensure housing is not built in areas of high flood risk without adequate mitigation, by allowing local authorities to set their own fees.
• Encouraging the use of rural exception sites to expand rural housing.
• Trialling Community Land Auctions to ensure that local communities receive a fair share of the benefits of new development in their areas and to help fund vital local services.
• Encouraging development of existing brownfield sites with financial incentives and ensuring that affordable and social housing is included in these projects.
• Introducing ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ planning permission for developers who refuse to build.
• Committing an additional £1bn to Environmental Land Management schemes to recognise the role that the natural environment plays in carbon management and food production

RICS response

The Lib Dems manifesto’s plans for housing and planning are ambitious, with calls to ‘increase the building of new homes to 380,000 a year (including 150,000 social homes) across the UK’ and ‘building ten new garden cities’. However, there is little detail on how this would be delivered.

On brownfield development, RICS welcomes the acknowledgment that financial incentives are needed to encourage housing development, as well as the need to ensure affordable and social housing is included in these projects. RICS is also supportive of the pledge to properly fund local planning departments to improve planning outcomes, something RICS has called for previously to ensure that the planning system operates effectively.

Furthermore, RICS welcomes the proposal for an additional £1bn to Environmental Land Management schemes to drive environmental improvement in the natural environment and move towards a more sustainable future for the sector.

However, further detail is needed on a number of pledges, including the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ planning permission for developers who refuse to build, a scheme that may have unintended consequences on development viability, the trialling of Community Land Auctions, a potential way to encourage local input into land use, and the commitment that new developments should result in significant net gain for biodiversity, with up to a 100% net gain for large developments, an important measure in many respects, but one which arguably lacks feasibility at a time when development starts are falling due to increased cost pressures.

This is clearly apparent when looking at the pledge to ‘allow councils to buy land for housing based on current use value rather than on a hope-value basis by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961’. This is a difficult area, that may in some cases increase the financial viability of certain schemes. However, this would only be at the expense of lowering of the payment to the landowner, a marked departure from the well-established concept that they would be paid the open market value for the land acquired, as per section 5 (2) of the Land Compensation Act 1961.