Brandon Lewis says 鈥渇arce鈥� of lengthy negotiations must end
Housing minister Brandon Lewis has promised to reform the way that section 106 deals work in order to end the 鈥渇arce鈥� of multi-year delays to large projects.
Speaking at a Centre for Social Justice fringe event at the Conservative Party conference, Lewis said he would take further action to reform planning in order to reduce the difficulties seen by developers getting approval to start on site.
Talking about section 106 deals, where controversial 鈥渧iability鈥� negotiations are conducted behind closed doors between developers and councils in order to agree the level of affordable housing and other planning obligations, Lewis said: 鈥淲e need to create something that can鈥檛 be gamed by either side. This farce where it takes several years after a permission in principle has been given just cannot be allowed to continue.
鈥淕etting planning is a huge barrier to entry for SMEs.鈥�
The government has already announced plans to free up planning rules on brownfield land, and to step in at local authorities who haven鈥檛 formulated a local plan.
Lewis also referred to a scheme which took ten years of negotiation with the local community to get on site as representing 鈥渆verything that was wrong鈥� with the system. 鈥淚t used to take nine weeks from buying a site to get a planning permission. I鈥檇 like it to be closer to nine weeks than a decade to get on site.鈥�
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