Landscope 221214

23/12/2014

Headlines

22/12/2014

Autumn Statement: the headlines and property lines Headlines • Oil and house prices are the main threats to the U.K.’s banks, according to the Bank of England.

Housing remains the biggest domestic risk but it has not increased since June.

• Multi-national company taxation: a new 25% tax on profits from UK economic activities that are ‘artificially shifted’ abroad.

Will be popular with voters but tricky to implement according to accountants. Estimated value over next parliament: £1bn.

• Higher rate tax and the personal allowance thresholds: have been raised (if only slightly), but the first increase for middle earners for a number of years.

• Tax avoidance: £5bn to be clawed back over the next parliament. HMRC has been successful in reclaiming unpaid tax recently but predicting what can be reclaimed is difficult.

• Cuts in government spending: a further £50bn (real) by 2018-19, which is more than the total that has already been cut.

• Devolution: Manchester will receive over £300m investment for innovation and an arts centre. Wales gets an increased annual budget and control of its business rates from 2015.

Housing • Stamp Duty Land Tax reform: replacement of the ‘slab’ system with a ‘stepped’ system, where higher rates are only changed on the portion of the amount above a threshold, which creates fewer artificial barriers in house prices. It will benefit people who buy properties for less than £937,000, but cost more for people buying over this amount. The Government estimated that 98% of purchasers would be better off but this has been challenged, as it is based on the wrong average value of a house, and will not be linked to inflation. Labour is still proposing to introduce a mansion tax on top of stamp duty. The Bank of England has said that the changes will boost the housing market.

• New garden cities: at Bicester and Ebbsfleet (which do seem remarkably similar to Labour’s previous eco-town concept).

• Government house building: at a pilot scheme in Cambridgeshire of 10,000 houses. This proposal has already attracted criticism for unnecessary government interference in a functioning economic market which could be made to work better by further reform of the planning system, not government activity.

• Infrastructure investment: adjustment of where the £15bn programme to 2021, announced in 2013, will be spent.

Other property • Re-announcement of increase in spending on flood risk management. This has been criticised by the CIWEM as being inadequate to deal with current flooding issues, let alone future ones.

• Small business rate relief: will remain doubled for another year. Business rates discount for shops, pubs and cafes increased by 50% to £1,500 pa.

• Structural review of the business rates system: by 2016. This has been criticised by ratings specialists it has to be fiscally neutral, so won’t amount to much change

Planning: No affordable housing on small rural sites Developers will no longer have to provide affordable housing or tariff style contributions on sites of 10-units or less (and < 1,000m2 combined gross floor space). In National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, planning authorities may choose to lower the threshold to 5-units or less; on developments of 6 - 10 units, a cash payment could be sought – not actual built houses. The proposal has been criticised by the Rural Services Network as likely to decimate rural affordable housing because most sites in villages are small.

The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill (UK) The Bill, which is designed to support small businesses, has been published. It is wide ranging and includes measures on reducing regulation and zero hours contracts.

Fracking: amendment so landowners not liable for losses due to fracking Following CLA lobbying, the Infrastructure Bill will be amended so a landowner will not be liable for any loss or damage resulting from fracking, unless it is the result of his deliberate omission.

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23/12/2014

Farming El Nino Meteorologists are on the verge of declaring the emergence of a weak or moderate El Nino, which can trigger extreme weather across the world, which affect harvests. Commodity prices, such as cocoa, jumped earlier in the year due to expectations of an El Nino, as Pacific ocean temperatures were warmer than expected.

New biocide is less toxic to honeybees A potential new biopesticide, made of spider venom and snowdrop proteins, kills agricultural pests but shows reduced toxicity to honeybees. Further research is needed.

Property Issues Economy: UK has highest property tax burden in OECD £1 in every £8 collected by the UK taxman in 2012 came from property, the highest rate of all of the world’s 34 richest countries and double the OECD average; the bulk is council tax.

Waste: new National Planning Policy for Waste for England The new policy, which replaces PPS10, is a concise five pages. Key provisions are: • Local Plans are now the focus. Waste planning authorities are to develop waste plans based on evidence on local waste arisings and national waste management requirements.

• Local Plans must identify opportunities to meet the area’s waste management needs and recognise the importance this should be given alongside other spatial planning concerns.

• On-site management of waste is encouraged and local authorities should plan waste management facilities on previously-developed land; employment sites; and redundant farm and forestry sites, but Green Belt is more protected.

• Waste management must be considered in all development applications, so it becomes more integrated / co-located with complementary activities, for example where heat can be re-used or close to sewage treatment works and urban areas.

Planning: RTPI warns budget cuts could threaten localism A survey of 100 UK planning experts for the Royal Town Planning Institute warns that cuts to local planning budgets could jeopardise economic growth, housing and infrastructure development. The 46% cut in the budgets of planning departments over the last four years is prohibiting the success of localism.

Commercial property: grounds to oppose the renewal of a business tenancy The Court of Appeal held that a landlord could oppose the renewal of a business tenancy (on a shop and house premises) on the grounds that the tenant had not kept the property in good repair and prevented the landlord gaining access. The landlord also appealed on the basis of persistent late payment of rent but this was not considered by the Court to be good grounds for refusing to renew the lease.

General election 2015: Liberal Democrat’s main proposals on property The Lib Dems position on how a mansion tax should be implemented has changed to using higher council tax bands, from introducing a tax on properties valued at more than £2 million. They have also proposed further protection for private tenants in England. They have also pledged to build 10 new garden cities, including three to five along the Oxford-Cambridge rail link – which would be re-opened. The proposal to build 300,000 new homes a year is not supported by much detail on land supply, planning or financial viability.

Planning (Wales) Bill: update and additional consultation The Welsh Government introduced and is consulting on the Planning (Wales) Bill.

Small sewage discharges in England Following a consultation on the regulations, while the requirements to prevent pollution are retained unchanged, and will be known as the general binding rule, the Government is removing the requirement to register, keep records of maintenance and notify when a discharge ceases. Environmental permits for small sewage discharges will continue to be used in certain areas to protect drinking waters sources and other sensitive areas. The changes come into effect on 1 January 2015.

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23/12/2014

New £25 million minibus fund The Department for Transport has announced a £25 million fund for new minibuses for community transport operators in rural areas. It is for existing voluntary and third sector organisations that already have a permit to run not-for-profit services of benefit to local communities.

Planning: housing supply: BPF backs calls for elderly homes allocations The British Property Federation supports the call for local plans to allocate land for housing for elderly people.

The UK is facing a severe undersupply of retirement housing. Currently 8,000 homes are delivered a year compared with 30,000 a year in the 1980s. The proposal could make retirement homes more affordable and will also encourage people to downsize, thereby releasing more homes on to the market.

Residential Markets Starter Home Initiative announced This Government initiative offers a 20% discount on new homes to 100,000 first-time buyers under the age of 40. The reduction is funded by exempting developers from section 106 and CIL charges, so they can then sell the houses for less.

NewBuy scheme is a failure as only 5,000 – not 100,000 - people are helped Under this Government scheme designed to aid house purchase, buyers only have to find a deposit of 5%, but critics say that rising house prices have meant that even this figure is unachievable for many.

House building: brownfield could supply 1m homes, according to CPRE report Nearly half of the identified space was in the South East, the East of England and London, which alone could accommodate 146,000 homes. The report says that more than 400,000 homes could be built quickly on brownfield land which already has either detailed or outlined planning permission. Another 550,000 could be built on “suitable vacant or derelict land”. These figures may also be underestimates, as they do not include underused land, such as carparks.

• Demand for houses, measured by the number of house-hunters registered at estate agents, is at a 10year high, while supply is at a 12-year low for a September (National Association of Estate Agents).

• House builders Bellway has said that demand for housing remained resilient but was returning to a normal seasonal pattern.

• UK house price growth is accelerating, according to ONS, and prices have risen by 12.1% in the year to September. The findings contradict other surveys. Nationwide and Land Registry say prices rose by an average of 8.5% in the year to November, down from 9% in the year to October.

• The possible introduction of a mansion tax after next year’s general election has stopped house price growth in some parts of London (Knight Frank).

• The Halifax expects house prices to rise by 3% to 5% next year, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors sees price rises at the bottom end of that range, 3%. It expects rents to rise 2%.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research expects a 0.8% fall in prices nationwide.

• House building grew 0.8% in 2014Q3 compared with the previous quarter although it has not fully recovered from a slump in August (ONS).

• HSBC does not expected interest rates to rise until 2016 due to the slowdown in the UK’s economic growth. It originally predicted a rate increase early in 2015. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says the Bank needs to use higher interest rates to control inflation caused by jobs growth leading to stronger wages.

• Rents nationally fell further than usual in October, suggesting that they had reached a natural ceiling based on income, according to Homelet.

Consultation on giving Financial Policy Committee powers over housing market's stability The Government is consulting on whether the FPC should have the power to impose lending restrictions, including a cap based on debt-to-income and loan-to-value ratios. Central banks in other countries have these powers. A separate consultation in 2015 will consider the buy to let market.

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23/12/2014

Forestry Tales of our Forest The EC has published a stunning new book, called Tales of our Forest, of cultural references to forests from across Europe alongside children’s drawings from its 2013 Forest Drawing Competition. Free hard copies can be ordered as well as the pdf download.

Environment Climate change: Mayors' Adapt – 100 cities sign up Over 100 cities, including Stirling, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leicester and Greater Manchester, have agreed to take strong local action on adaptation to climate change.

Climate change: 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have been since 2000 2014 is on track to be the hottest year on record across the world, according to the UN. The UK Met Office said that this was at least partially due to human influence. It is too early to say whether 2014 signalled the end of the so-called pause in the rate of global warming that has occurred in the past decade.

The benefits of managing pollinators for crop production A practice note from the Living With Environmental Change research programme identifies what land managers and growers can do to help to conserve and manage insect pollinators: • Establish flower-rich field margins • Cut hedges less frequently and hard to increase floral and nesting resources • Reduce the input and improve the targeting of agrochemicals to reduce the risk of negative impacts on pollinators and the flowering plants on which they forage • Increase the diversity of flowering crops, or rotate beneficial crops such as clover, beans and oilseed • Protect woodlands, heaths, and meadows, which provide essential nesting and feeding habitats • Establish and/or maintain low-input grasslands, which are high quality habitats for wild pollinators • Consider introducing managed pollinators such as honeybees or bumblebees if there aren’t enough wild pollinators in the short-term

Energy: International Energy Agency warns of lower US shale gas prices and investment The IEA warned that the recent low in crude oil prices could cut US shale oil investment in 2015, which will lead to a decline in production in the medium-term. This is not the IEA’s greatest concern – which is wider output shortfalls in 2020 and beyond.

Bavarian Farmers' Association flowering frame wins European Bee Award 2014 This clever, farmer-led project motivates as many farmers as possible to voluntarily and at their own expense establish flower strips on the edge of fields, creating habitat for bees and wildlife. Over 100km of ‘flowering frames’ have been established and the Association is going for more… Would be great to do the same in the UK. How about an inter-county competition?

And finally…

Hitting the high notes A gospel choir set a new world record for the highest altitude carol concert, of 39,000 feet, when they sang on a flight from London's Gatwick airport to Geneva.

Santa fined A man dressed in a Santa suit has been fined for climbing up Glasgow's iconic statue of the Duke of Wellington.

A police spokeswoman was keen to stress the man who was fined was not the real Santa.

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this briefing, its information may not be comprehensive and recipients should not act upon it without seeking full professional advice.

If you have queries regarding any of the articles, please contact jason.beedell@smithsgore.co.uk (01733 866562) or andrew.teanby@smithsgore.co.uk (01522 507310)

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