LABOUR’s plans to let local council’s compulsory purchase land for housing could slow the supply of new homes rather than speed it up, according to York’s housing sector.

The party wants councils to be able to force landowners to sell their land at agricultural prices rather than at the much higher rates land goes for when it obtains planning permission.

Labour says the savings will fund the infrastructure new settlements need and will bring prices down. It would be akin to how New Towns were developed and funded last century.

However, Ian Hessay, director of Dunnington-based Mulgrave Homes, warned legal processes would have to be thoroughly streamlined for compulsory purchase to work.

Compulsory purchase powers could mark 'sea change' in housing delivery

“There are endless appeal and judicial routes open at present, meaning the process can, and typically does, take years to complete. It will not be a quick fix,” he said.

Already, developers face costs such as Community Infrastructure Levies and Section 106 agreements to fund infrastructure, plus offering a share of the homes on a social/affordable basis.

Such obligations, he said, “equates to approximately 50% of land value in the York area.”

Ian added: “We desperately need to resource planning departments and reinstate housing targets for all local authorities. Even before the immigration crisis, we've not matched housing delivery for 30 years.

“To make housing affordable in a free-market economy, you must match supply and demand, something all Governments have failed to achieve for the past three decades.”

There will be NO extra new housing on green belt, says York Labour

Jamie Pyper of town planners Nineteen47 says landowners will sell land for development, but Green Belt and heritage rules stop this. To increase housing supply, councils must allow development in less sensitive parts of the Green Belt.

He warned: “I can see the intended CPO (compulsory purchase order) of land resulting in protracted legal action from landowners.”

Steve Secker, chair of York & North Yorkshire Chamber’s Property Forum, supports more housebuilding, but says more detail of Labour’s plans is needed.

The sector already faces economic uncertainty and changing the planning environment would add to this.

He too supported better resourced planning departments to boost housing supply, warning national policy changes could take time to implement.

Landowners would also take to the courts if they felt they were not getting a fair outcome, he said.

Rachael Maskell slams City of York Council over planning delays

However, in a parliamentary debate on housing supply this month Howden MP David Davis said planning permission increases the price of farmland from £21,000 a hectare to £2.1m.

Small village schemes attract hundreds of objections, but new towns will not. A government created garden development corporation could still pay a landowner 10% of the development value, which would still be ten times its former value, leaving the rest to fund infrastructure.

York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell said land needs to be released for housing, rather than land banked by developers.

She told the House: “We need measures under which land is re-evaluated and brought into use—through compulsory purchase orders, if necessary. Too many are gaming the system.”