During the Labour Party Conference, we hosted offshoot event which sparked lively debate and conversation around Labour’s new housing plans. This session placed us at the heart of the conversation, offering an engaging panel debate among industry leaders and politicians, chaired by journalist Liz Hamson from BE News.
The session included an open Q&A from the audience, encouraging a diversity of opinions and an exchange of views. Simon Vernon Harcourt, City & Country’s Design & Planning Director emphasised the importance of collaboration: “It is all about getting heads around a table and actually knowing what the problems are and how they can be addressed rather than a blanket solution or a one-size-fits-all when it comes to planning. There’s a lot of simple ways to make things easier to help deliver homes, now it’s about bringing people together to do it.”
Kate Faulkner, Chair of the Home Buying and Selling Council, highlighted the inefficiencies in the current planning process: “Everyone I speak to who goes through the planning process spends far too much time defending and challenging the planning decision rather than building and getting on with it. I don’t think it’s just a resourcing issue, the system just doesn’t work. It is way too argumentative and political.”
Josh Dean MP, Member of Parliament for Hertford and Stortford stressed the need for a mindset shift towards collaboration: “We have to get that balance and mindset shift to build collaboration. That is key for today’s discussion and ‘collaboration’ will be a keyword I keep coming back to as we are just not there yet, and we need to.”
Liz Hamson concluded the session with a positive outlook: “Collaboration and compromise are the key takeaways from today’s session but the consensus is for the Labour Government to stick with the ambitious housing targets and the room remains positively optimistic that the UK will get Britain building.”
Labour’s plans to unlock the planning system aim to address these issues by fostering collaboration and streamlining processes.