00A zoning system for England

The Government’s national growth mission depends on the success of its planning reform agenda. It has committed to introduce a more rules-based planning system that “backs the builders, not the blockers” to reach a target of 1.5 million new homes in England over this Parliament.

Ahead of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill later this year, this briefing explains why the most promising approach for the Government to achieve its economic and housebuilding goals is through a shift from the current discretionary system towards a flexible zoning system.

The problem is that the Government will struggle to significantly increase housebuilding and growth in the discretionary system, because even if the planning rules are changed, they will still remain open to interpretation by planners.

A zoning system would see higher levels of housebuilding and economic growth, because planning reform is easier in a rules-based system. Changing planning rules to make them more flexible is much easier in countries such as New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and the US – that share common law legal systems with England – because they already have zoning systems.

To introduce a flexible zoning system, the Government needs to:

• Pursue ‘Option 3’ of the Government’s Planning Reform Working Paper on Planning Committees, which would reduce discretion.
• Activate the National Development Management Policies, which would replace local planning policy and provide a consistent national rulebook.
• Replace the concept of “material considerations” with a new system of “material designations”, which would provide special discretionary protections within the new flexible zoning system in designated locations.

Together, these would create a flexible zoning system similar to that in other common law countries, where proposals that followed the rules would be guaranteed planning permission.

The Government would then use these powers to create a range of different zones, from suburban zones to city centre zones, each of which would contain a mix of allowed uses and limits on density and heights. Local planning authorities would then apply these zones to set the rules on what was and what was not allowed in each neighbourhood, and then decide where to overlay the material designations on top to provide additional local oversight.

To ensure any planning reforms have the desired growth impacts, the Government will also need to change tack in their devolution agenda. The proposed two-tier “shire mayors” will repeat the fragmentation of the existing two-tier system and will struggle to increase housebuilding. Instead, single-tier county councils with all the powers of mayors and that match local economies should be how devolution is advanced outside the big cities.

Zoning will not just result in a “sugar rush” of economic growth over this Parliament thanks to a construction boom and cheaper housing costs. The removal of the discretionary system, which was created 80 years ago by the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 to constrain the big cities, would achieve a permanent and sustainable increase to national productivity by allowing cities to play the role they should in the national economy. A flexible zoning system would finally allow Britain to meet its full potential, and support national prosperity for decades to come.