Planning game-changer as Chamber secures policy win

The government’s plan to tackle costly planning delays has been hailed a potential game-changer in the region’s employment land crisis.

Among Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s commitments in his recent spring budget was a new measure of investment for planning capacity and resourcing.

Whitehall has pledged to match industry-led funding up to £3 million to better equip local planning departments.

The move has been championed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) which has long blamed the lack of commercial space up and down the country on ‘a slow planning system’.

The problem is especially acute in Coventry and Warwickshire, where the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly called, on behalf of its members, for an increase to skills and capacity in planning authorities on the patch to help alleviate the shortage of employment land.

Sean Rose, head of policy at Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said:

“Businesses have long been telling the Chamber that planning departments are under huge pressure and that is one of the factors holding back the development of employment land across our region.

“This commitment from the Government to match industry funding is a step in the right direction in supporting local authorities to get the people with the right skills into their employment to help deal with planning backlogs.

“This budget ask from the Chamber of Commerce network is a good demonstration of what can be achieved when businesses and the public sector work together to solve issues holding back the economy.”

The government is due to publish its consultation on proposals for a new accelerated planning service as well as new measures to combat time agreement extensions and identify the local planning authorities which use these excessively.

In a report released last year, Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce outlined how economic growth in the region was being stifled by a subsequent shortage of employment land.

The report said companies in the region were struggling to find adequate and affordable space, in some cases preventing them from expansion. This was causing a lag in the local economy, deterring inward investment and jeopardising the creation of new jobs, the report said.

Recognising what is a frustrating constraint right across the country, the BCC announced last month plans for a new five-year industry-led programme to increase skills and capacity in Local Planning Authorities (LPAs).

The programme will pay for at least 100 undergraduate and masters’ level qualifications for people entering the planning industry and for those already working in LPAs who need to develop skills for more senior planning roles.

It will pay for the learner’s training and aim to facilitate work experience and jobs within LPAs.

In return, at the end of their course of study, the learner must commit to work in a council planning role for at least two years.

At that point, BCC President Baroness Martha Lane Fox urged the government to offer the type of support that was forthcoming in the Budget.

“The UK’s economy is being held back by a slow planning system,” Baroness Lane-Fox had said, “and we must address the lack of resource by giving local planning authorities some hope of support.

“The Chambers membership is consistently telling us a slow planning system, due to limited resource, is blocking much-needed investment and halting growth.

“We want to work in partnership with government to take concrete steps to support them to help unlock our planning system. It is vital that businesses of all shapes and sizes across the country contribute to this initiative.”

David Penn, of commercial property estate agent Bromwich Hardy, previously lamented the West Midlands’ ‘chronic shortage’ of land for jobs. Mr Penn, a member of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber’s Employment Land Panel, says there has been ‘insufficient construction’ of factories and warehouses of all sizes and insufficient land for storage purposes across many industries.

“This is at the same time as strong demand for such uses, particularly since Covid because of higher levels of online shopping and direct delivery,” he said in the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber’s report.

“Those sites that have been allocated through Local Authority Local Plans have inevitably been taken up in bulk for large scale logistics, leaving very little for the development of buildings for small to medium-sized companies.”

More information on the BCC’s overarching planning skills programme can be found at https://www.britishchambers.org.uk/policycampaigns/people-and-work/our-solutions/investing-in-talent-building-communities/ Local businesses are being urged to donate to the fund and for more information should contact Sean Rose at seanr@cw-chamber.co.uk