What's happening to housing developments?

Amazingly, AudlemOnline received the following from Cheshire East Council over the weekend:

Cheshire East Council is to ask the Government to do more to 'get Britain building' -- to boost housing supply and relieve the pressure on greenfield sites.

It follows frustration that some developers are 'land-banking' large plots with planning approval for houses and seeking to snap up more greenfield sites -- waiting until the market picks up, rather than building homes to meet housing needs. Other sites have seen very slow rates of building completion, for a variety of reasons.

Why 'amazingly' you might be thinking. It's because on Friday morning, the webteam met and agreed to publish a hard-hitting article attacking the developers for lack of action, or indeed communication, after they receive planning permission. The fact Cheshire East are thinking along the same lines is a pleasant coincidence – but here is AudlemOnline's version of events:

Once a planning application for a major development has been approved, many local people are seriously affected. They may not be able to sell their house, for example. At the very least, they will be unsettled by the thought of building work. But then, nothing happens, nothing is communicated, often for years.

The Gladman organisation, for example, were keen enough to 'consult' as they were seeking to obtain planning permission at Little Heath. Since their successful appeal, we have heard nothing. Has the land been sold on to a builder – we do not know. When will building work start – we do not know.

All Gladman has been doing locally is make the Neighbourhood Plan process in Audlem as difficult as possible with huge numbers of issues raised, most of them, we understand, cut and paste objections from the doubtless many other neighbourhood plans they are trying to disrupt around the country.

We cannot help imagining what both the local and national situation could be now. Gladman, and other developers, spotted an opportunity they could exploit when over half the councils around the country failed to produce Local Plans and Five Year Housing figures in a timely manner. Hundreds of applications went in for planning permission for large developments, most of them successful after very expensive appeals.

Perhaps, we might conclude, this has flooded the market with approved sites, upsetting the supply and demand balance, meaning that the builders the likes of Gladman sell on to can name a much a lower price for a site than had once been expected. Perhaps so low that the landowners Gladman and other developers have been acting for think it's no longer worth selling at that price.

Or, even worse, the builders are uninterested in many sites as they are unlikely to be able to sell sufficient houses in some rural locations because that is not where the housing demand is. It's in cities like London and it's affordable homes that are really in demand, not four-bedroomed houses out in the countryside.

The result, inactivity as far as building is concerned, and uncertainty for thousands of neighbouring home owners all over the country. And just as bad, approved planning permission housing numbers are only counted into the Five Year Housing Supply figures for Local Plan purposes once building actually starts. In other words, the developers can screw up the Local Plan process, thus giving them even more time to exploit the lack of a Local Plan to get more permissions through!

But then again, maybe some developers will come unstuck. Planning appeals can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is only recovered once the land is sold on to a builder, and a significant proportion of that money must go to the landowner rather than the likes of Gladman. If not, there's no point the landowner agreeing to sell.

Perhaps some developers' bank loans are mounting and mounting as they pay out for numerous appeals – and yet the land isn't being sold because it's become a buyer's market for the builders who can pick and choose which plots to buy. The result 'Lot's of cash going out; little cash coming in'. Always a precarious business model!

It's all a theory, of course. But somehow, it has a ring of truth to it. Time will tell.

We have heard on the grapevine that the Hockenhull site in Heathfield Road may have, however, been sold – we have had no confirmation – although a 'For Sale' sign is still there. A new planning application from Hockenhull has also been submitted for two large houses on Mill Lane.

Hockenhull's original proposal two years ago included properties in Mill Lane but these were rejected on access grounds. Presumably there have been no changes to Mill Lane that will change that original judgement. We will wait and see.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.