British Property Federation Reaction: Government Spending Review

With the publication of the Government Spending Review, Melanie Leech, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation, has commented.

Extra resource for local authorities – but little for housing and planning:

“Additional funding for local authorities is much needed and welcome. However, today’s Spending Review offers little to support new housing delivery or overstretched planning departments.

“Local authorities have a unique and vital role in alleviating the housing crisis and rejuvenating the UK’s struggling town centres, working in partnership with the property industry. However, despite the ambitions of many local authorities, they simply do not have the resources to focus on the strategic issues that will shape and secure their communities’ long-term future.

“Additional funding must be allocated to planning departments, which have seen the most severe cuts of any local authority service, with per-person spend on planning falling by 55 per cent between 2010/11 and 2017/18.

“While today’s announcement may ease some of the funding challenges facing local authorities, we cannot ignore the need for a more comprehensive change in the way that local government is valued and resourced.”

Funding for environmental issues does not reflect the scale of the challenge we face:

“It is critical that the government continues to lead on addressing the environmental issues that we face, domestically and globally, and we look forward to receiving further clarity on what funding and associated policy interventions will be forthcoming in the upcoming infrastructure strategy.

“However, the £90m allocated today to issues of air quality, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions does not reflect the scale of the challenge we face.

“Reducing our domestic emissions to net zero by 2050, as the Committee on Climate Change has noted, is only achievable if credible policies are introduced, existing ambitions are delivered in full, and challenges that have so far been out of scope are confronted.”

Kindly shared by British Property Federation (BPF)