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[09/11/11]A New House in the Country
[21/03/11]Affordable Housing in Scotland
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A New House in the Country

An interesting letter from the Scottish Chief Planner has been published today that suggests that occupancy conditions on new housing in the countryside should be avoided. The letter states that whilst these are popular with planners, the current economic situation means that people faced with them have struggled to obtain a mortgage and to sell the property where they are forced to move. The letter also suggests that such conditions are “intrusive, resource-intensive and difficult to monitor and enforce”. What this means for the future, only time will tell, but pretty much every local authority in Scotland currently requires the imposition of an occupancy condition/legal agreement in certain specified cases and so there are a lot of policies that are now incompatible with this latest advice. It also remains to be seen how this advice filters out and whether we see a flurry of applications to get planning conditions and legal agreements removed.

The Letter can be accessed by following the below link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/planning/National-Planning-Policy/themes/housing/Occupancyrestrictions

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Affordable Housing in Scotland

As a further measure to try to kick-start the housing sector, the Chief Planner has recently written to all Heads of Planning in Scotland suggesting that under current fiscal conditions, and correspondingly lower levels of public subsidy, they should give consideration to how best to deliver future affordable homes. In particular, the Chief Planner poses the question whether planning policies requiring contributions of 25% or more of units as affordable are deliverable, given current economic conditions, and might be counter-productive by actually leading to no development at all. Furthermore, the suggestion is made that local authorities should consider promoting forms of affordable housing that do not require any public subsidy at all, such as ‘entry level housing for sale’, ‘shared equity’ and ‘mid-market or intermediate rented’. These are all permissible in line with the Scottish Government’s affordable housing policy, but have never found favour with local authorities who tend to want social rented and the involvement of a registered social landlord.

The letter from the Chief Planner can be found at the following website:

http://www.homesforscotland.com/media/file/Letter%20from%20Chief%20Planner%20to%20Heads%20of%20Planing%20-%2015%20March%202011.pdf?Site=1

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