NFB: NPPF is right to focus less on numbers and more on building the right homes
National Federation of Builders
The National Federation of Builders (NFB) has often highlighted that the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has done more to tackle place-making than reform planning. It remains a guidance document rather than a national agenda for house building.
The annual house building target of 300,000 units is not going away, as it has appeared throughout several documents and is being used by almost every politician.
The Government and its detractors often use this target to either honour or discredit success, whereas the reality of building new homes is much more nuanced. Councils have been scrambling to meet targets and, consequently, many have neglected to build the homes that ordinary people actually need.
This makes the target of building 300,000 new homes every year quite arbitrary, especially as failing to meet it increases the target the following year. It may allow the Government to illustrate annual improvements, but it can also hamper a nuanced discussion about the best way to meet rising demand for new homes.
The NFB believes that the discussion should focus on the number and type of homes to build. For example, assessing the number of one, two, three and four-bedroom flats, houses and bungalows would go a long way to understanding whether housing is affordable in real-world terms, and not just in policy theory.
Richard Beresford, chief executive of the NFB, said: “We’re not building enough homes, but we must look at whether we are building the right homes in the right places. Three hundred thousand one-bedroom flats will not solve the housing crisis, just as 300,000 bungalows would not. The reality of the housing crisis is much more complicated than a headline-grabbing number.
“The NPPF is a guidance document and needs to be treated that way. We need solutions to help either put it in practice or identify its failures.”
