New research on growth and planning reform

To kick start our programme of policy research the Commission wanted to better understand public attitudes towards growth and ‘unlocking’ the planning system. This has - rightly - become of significant interest to both the Labour and Conservative parties in recent months who both recognise how fundamental ‘building things’ is to our economic growth.

We partnered with research company YouGov to undertake new polling on public attitudes to growth and the planning system. The full data tables can be found here.

In summary, the public doesn’t feel that Labour (net -9 points) or the Conservatives (net -30 points) currently have credible plans to grow the economy.

• The most popular political party voters trust to grow the UK economy is ‘none of the above’.

• The top three ways the public thinks we can grow the economy are 1) invest in training for high-tech jobs and industries 2) increase transport links across the country and 3) build more houses. 

On housebuilding and the planning system:

• More than half the country (53%) would support a large increase in housebuilding (33% against) with 47% supporting it in their own local area.

• 26% think that planning laws around house building are ‘too strict’, 27% think they are ‘about right’ and 21% feel they are ‘too loose’.

• In terms of persuading local communities to accept a ‘large increase in the amount of new housing’ in their local area (in order of popularity):
  ○ A promise of investment in improving local services (e.g. more doctors, school places) accompanying development saw support rise to 75% V 13% opposing (a 28% boost in support compared to the baseline).
  ○ Reserving a fixed proportion of new homes for local people saw 66% support and 19% opposition (19% boost V baseline).
  ○ Delivering new developments in a way that was in keeping with local architecture and building traditions saw 64% support and 20% opposition (17% boost V baseline).
  ○ A direct cash payment to local people of £10,000 saw support of 60% V 28% against housing plans (a 13% boost in support compared to no payment).
  ○ Money off energy bills for all households in the local area saw support at 60% with opposition at 24% (a 13% boost in support compared to the baseline).

Useful background

●  Since 2010, we’ve built or updated 1,100 miles of major roads and increased offshore wind capacity twenty times over from 674MW to 14,200MW

●  Since 2012 time to get a Development Consent Order has increased by 65% (from 2.6 to 4.2 years on average) and the rate of judicial review has reached 60% (long-term average of 10%).

●  No reservoirs have been built in England in the last 30 years. No new nuclear plants have been built for 28 years.

●  Over the last 40 years investment in the UK averaged 19% of GDP, the lowest in the G7.

●  Over half of all legal challenges to NSIP decisions have been brought since 2020.

●  For major projects, the length of environmental impact assessments (stemming from EU law) has exponentially increased: assessments for offshore wind can stretch to over 10,000 pages alone, while Sizewell C’s environmental impact assessments reached a staggering 44,260 pages – more than 30 times longer than the complete works of Shakespeare.

Infrastructure projects in the UK are very expensive across categories:

○  On large infrastructure projects, the National Infrastructure Commission estimates that teams can cost around £1.5 million to run per month which means cost of delays adds up fast.

○  Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per-mile basis.

○  British underground (tube) projects are 2 times more expensive than projects in Italy or France, 3 times more expensive than Germany, and a whopping 6 times more expensive than Spain.

○  Research from the Rail Industry Association shows that electrification is delivered at a much lower cost in Germany, Switzerland and Denmark.

○  Britain is 23% more expensive than France, 17% more expensive than Canada, and 13% more expensive than Italy for road delivery (per-mile).

○  Although America is even more expensive for infrastructure projects than us.

○  One of the main reasons that is is so expensive and slow in the UK is our planning environment and political tinkering/interference (not that the paper says this latter point).

In the coming months, the Commission will be putting forward a series of policy interventions aimed at improving how we build and gain consents for major projects in the UK.