The Devon Housing Commission and the King’s Speech

The Devon Housing Commission formally released its Report today (Friday 19 July 2024). This looks well timed given the new Government’s spotlight on housing and planning, and its consequent reflection in the King’s speech.

The King’s Speech is a critical part of the State Opening of Parliament. It is delivered by the King, although the speech is written by the new Government. It sets out the planned legislative program for the forthcoming Parliamentary session, for this session it set out 40 Bills.

The Government has already made it clear, from Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first speech, that housing and planning are to be a focus and among its key themes (see my news item of 8 July 2024). The content of the King’s speech backs that up.

Almost in parallel the Devon Housing Commission have today formally released its Report, identifying a housing crisis in this county of Devon. The problem is swiftly identified by Richard Best (Lord Best, Chair, Devon Housing Commission) as an acute shortage of homes affordable for the next generation.

Lord Best then moves swiftly to consider what special difficulties apply to becoming a homeowner in Devon:

1. house prices are inflated by those moving in from more expensive areas
2. availability of affordable rented housing
3. the amount of privately rented housing has declined by more than elsewhere, due partly because of switching to short-term lettings for tourists
4. Devon has an older population profile and family-size properties are under-occupied
5. the rural nature of Devon and the physical aspects of Devon make new building problematic in many places
6. Devon also contains many coastal towns which can attract “benefit tourists”
7. the inclusion of unusual local government structures such as Plymouth, the eight local authorities, and Torbay and the County Council.

This is by no means an exhaustive list or analysis of the situation in Devon. It seems to us that this list is more powerful than that, and highlights the special and particular issues that are uniquely collected together and present when considering these points in Devon.

The primary areas of legislative impact in the Speech for housing can be identified as

• a Planning and Infrastructure Bill to streamline the process for approving critical infrastructure, and overhaul rules on the compulsory purchase of land
• a Renters’ Rights Bill, will ban “no fault” evictions and extend a series of building safety rules for social tenants, known as Awaab’s Law, to private renters
• a draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will curb ground rent for existing leaseholders, and ban forfeiture where leaseholders are threatened with losing their home over small unpaid debts

These areas between them could show a bundle of potentially powerful changes to the existing stale regime. However, the areas need not only act individually to address specific issues and areas of difficulty, but they also act in concert with each other to magnify their collective impact.

Planning in particular is a difficult area to pick apart and so will likely need to be clearly focussed in its legislative form. There is a promise to review the NPPF by the end of this month as an early action, and we anticipate further announcements along with rapid consultation on these proposals in the coming weeks. The Report could assist this.

To pull back the focus on this and move on then it becomes a clear possibility that the Report will be able to add an early layer of consideration and thought to a number of the contents of the King’s speech and the key points from the Report. This might help to speed consideration and thought to some of the more technical parts on the King’s speech.

Regular readers may recall that Michelmores hosted a consultation earlier this year (which you can read here) that addressed a proposed devolution deal with Devon and Torbay Combined County Authorities (“CCA”). CCAs are a new model of devolution, as was then outlined in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.

However, now a more bespoke English Devolution Bill will streamline the process to transfer more powers to elected mayors in combined council areas.

There are a lot of bills that need to get through this Parliamentary session (40 bills is a lot!) and the Government will need to move swiftly to get them all debated and passed through the Parliamentary process.

In this regard the Report produced by the Devon Housing Commission can surely only be regarded in a positive light. The Report contains detailed recommendations to assist with bringing forward some seven categories of recommendations and further numerous and bespoke recommendations to bring the proposals into a more granular and practical form.

The timing of the Report is fortunate, it blends well with the King’s Speech and offers many recommendations which could assist with bringing forward detail. In addition to housing then the devolution recommendations could provide further comfort that housing is being supported both by the Speech’s content and by the Report.

The clear message from the Government is that housing will be one of the key drivers in their policy. The Report seems to be ideally placed to assist with that.

Should you wish to discuss any of the issues raised in this article, please contact Mark Howard.