Devo deal set to spark housing boom
A RADICAL ‘devolution deal’, which grants new powers to regional mayors, could spur housing growth across the UK and stave off a northern housing crisis.
That is the view outlined in a new report ‘Closer to Home’, by IPPR North, a Manchester-based think tank.
The report recommends that a raft of planning powers are devolved to regional mayors who, the think tank argues, are best placed to tackle local housing challenges.
Mayors would have the power to: create new development corporations to ensure that sufficient land, planning and financial capacity is available to unlock additional homes; release green belt land for development where complete brownfield registers have been exhausted; establish viability frameworks to bring more certainty to the planning process and intervene when the Local Plan process has stalled in constituent local authorities.
The report is timely, because a number of key issues associated with the devolution agenda remain in flux.
Former chancellor George Osborne set the wheels in motion in 2014 when he announced plans for new ‘metro mayors’, who would drive forward his vision for a Northern Powerhouse.
But the first of the new regional elections are now fast approaching – Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region will hold their inaugural votes in May next year – and very little is still unknown about what new powers the mayors will actually hold.
Leading lights in Theresa May’s inner team are, in principle, fully signed-up to the devolution agenda. Nick Timothy, May’s joint chief of staff, is a champion of localism (his political idol is Joseph Chamberlain – the doyen of muscular local government).
But why, when Osborne embraced devolution with such enthusiasm, has Theresa May been relatively quiet on the issue?
The Government’s challenge is that a Northern Powerhouse is likely to deliver a significant boost for the Labour Party: gifting new powers and platforms to resurgent Labour politicians is not exactly in the Government’s best political interests.
It is therefore no surprise that the report has been welcomed wholeheartedly by Labour. Andy Burnham, the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester, responded in the Guardian to say “This report is spot on: Westminster has created a housing crisis across the country and the new mayors must be given the powers to fix it”.
The looming metro elections will be accompanied by clarion calls from Labour for Theresa May to cede new powers to the metropolitan regions. If successful, this could reinforce Labour’s dominance in the north, and create new laboratories for Labour to implement its policy agenda (in London, Sadiq Khan has already been issuing a flurry of policy initiatives from City Hall).
The May administration’s response in the coming months will be pivotal for the future of English local government. While the case for localism remains popular within Government, political devolution of the type suggested by the IPPR North presents risks for the Conservatives that could outweigh the benefits.
