Category: Write to your MP or local Gov. Cllr.

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The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

If you haven’t already signed the petition, please sign if you want necessary changes to stop the present house price crisis from continuing to crash the starter end of our housing markets.

Sadly none of the political parties in Westminster are addressing the housing price crisis properly. This is hurting the nation’s economy by becoming an inflationary drag on the whole of society.

The following three remedies are designed to correct the housing markets by enabling sufficient affordability to be restored and maintained, aimed particularly at those working locally.

Did you know that a substantial part of the price of a house today is based on the value of the land beneath it!

The first and (No1) proposal is to make any land which gains planning consent for residential use, should become rated as having a nil or a nominal land value. This would help bring house prices back to genuine affordability levels once more. This proposal is based on the valuation knowledge, reasoning, and experience of the petitioner. There are two further proposals in addition to this.

You may well ask, how have ‘I’ (one person or individual), come to know exactly what to do and which way to turn in order to resolve matters of this degree of specialisation? The answer is that I chose surveying and valuation as my career in my 20’s and commenced in a training job back in the 60’s, working amongst a team of qualified surveyors already knowing all of these things and taking five or so years to qualify by examination. As a newly qualified surveyor I could then put such knowledge into use, advising clients and employers throughout the rest of my career. As I’m now retired, I can give commentary to what I have come to know over my career. I am able to diagnose and cure the present housing crisis using my knowledge relating to land, buildings, law, planning, economics and valuation. Crucially, I understand how to use valuation knowledge as the essential tool required for resolving the present house pricing issues, which have becoming a significant problem across society these days. There are two further proposals to set out in addition to this.

To continue …
The second or (No2) proposal in this petition is to change The Town and Country Planning rules so that whilst the regional planning authorities should continue to administer the whole planning process as happens currently, all such decisions relating to residential land use would fall under the jurisdiction of the relevant Town or Parish Council and would be decided by that local Town or Parish Council with reference to the currently adopted Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These instruments will have been created in liaison with the regional planning authority as now of course.

Such devolution of planning decision procedures are required in addition to the current Government’s ‘New Wave of Devolution’, which essentially proposes to introduce regional Mayors if local planning authorities should decide to apply.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing an adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP). See ‘The house price affordability crisis’ on the web site for more information.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP.

The additional change under this petition is to devolve all such decisions relating to the residential use and development of land to the relevant Town or Parish Council to decide subject to and with reference to the currently adopted Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), as explained.

Such extra devolution on residential planning decision-making would have to be included in the government’s current proposals for amendments to the existing National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), also part of the ‘New Wave of Devolution’.

Under this new devolution for residential planning applications there would no longer be a right-of-appeal to planning inspectors nominated by The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in the U.K. Instead, the local Town or Parish Council would be the authority to determine (to grant or refuse), all such planning applications within their jurisdiction.

If a dispute should arise following a decision made by the relevant local Town or Parish Council, any necessary appeal would be decided by a regulated arbitration process and there would be a formal hearing if deemed necessary. Under this procedure an appeal would be convened and heard locally upon application by the parties in dispute, instead of remotely by The Planning Inspectorate.

In other words, on the question of all applications for residential, or part residential planning approval, the local Town or Parish Council itself would expect to have a proper say, instead of only being allowed to make a formal comment to the regional authority, as occurs at present!

This way, appeals would be dealt with more quickly and appropriately, speeding up the whole planning process for residential planning applications. There would be a significant saving both in the time taken to determine these and in the financial cost of accomplishing the approved development.

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in the U.K. should however retain the ultimate right to call a particular planning application in for determination at inception, but The Planning Inspectorate should no longer be involved in determining residential planning applications and appeals in general, because appeals against such decisions would have been fully devolved to the relevant local Town or Parish Council to decide locally.

To reassure petitioners on some of the technical aspects of this change and in brief, all land would still be owned freehold or leasehold but any change of residential user would be treated as development under the planning rules and such development of land would require planning permission as newly administered by the relevant Town or Parish Council. Therefore obtaining formal planning permission for a change of residential user would differ from that which currently happens under the existing planning rules.

The third or (No3) and final proposal, is to bring better pricing knowledge and advice in, making this available for all buyers and renters, by introducing new buyer-orientated property agencies.

To achieve this there should be a complete change of all the existing marketing methods for housing, by introducing property agents representing the buyer and renter side of the negotiating process in place of the existing seller-led estate agency system. This issue has been failing all housing markets around the whole of our country for a long time.

This proposal would be a considerable improvement for reducing the cost of housing and hinges on shortening the time it takes for sales and purchases to result in becoming successful completions. It would work by improving the way all residential property is marketed, whether going for sale or to let, by replacing the existing estate agent regime with a new and fully licensed buyer and renter orientated agency service called Residential Housing Agents (RHAs). 

These agents would act primarily on behalf of buyers and renters by advising them both upon the market value of the property under consideration and also the condition of such property. This way those purchasing or renting property, especially if it is for themselves and their families to live in, would be directly hiring and paying for the Residential Housing Agent, both to find the best property for them and to deal with the whole of the purchase (or the renting transaction), right through to completion. This would be completely different from (and a reverse of), the existing estate agency regime, bringing significant advantages to the market. Another of the distinctions would be that the sale of the family’s former residence may be dealt with by a different RHA from the one advising on the purchase (or the rental) of the house to be acquired but working on the common ground of obtaining a completion.

If these changes were brought in people moving between houses at the higher end of the market should not be out of pocket as a result, whereas those at the lower end would see considerably lower prices, helping them to climb onto the property-owning ladder in the first place. Lower rental values would also be a spin-off effect from this.

The overall cost of building new houses would also be noticeably reduced as a result of these three proposals.

Sales throughput of all forms of residential property would increase as the affordability levels themselves would simultaneously increase.

These are the very stimuli needed to get housing sales flourishing and get new house building completions increasing once again.

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution

How to Improve all local housing markets in England and Wales

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant

Author of:– The House Price Solution

Your comments on this subject would be appreciated.

Unless things change significantly and along the lines explained here, countless people will experience unnecessary pain and trauma so please sign our petition under the link:

The petition is on the following link:

Petition on the cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

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A one-page synopsis of ‘The House Price Solution’, especially for newcomers

Welcome to The House Price Solution. This web site is campaigning for a change to the new government’s policy on having Top Down housing targets.

The purpose of this website is to stimulate debate and help find collectively, the best way to bring house prices back to within reach of a majority of those wishing and needing to buy (or indeed rent) housing for themselves and their families.

This is the alternative to simply trying to out-build housing demand, until prices reduce to lower levels; for that will never work!

I have a new and comprehensive planning and marketing solution which can resolve this problem. I merely ask that this is given due consideration by our new government.

The proposals set out on this website are future generational, based upon a detailed analysis of house price levels by the author as found to exist during historic and damaging economic turbulence in Britain.

The object of these proposals is to replace existing flawed sales and planning methods with new ones, designed to avoid the effects of unwanted future price escalation within all British housing markets. This would be the advantage of deploying The House Price Solution.

Having been in contact with my own MP about it, I am hoping for a referral of my alternative proposal to The Secretary of State at The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I would like to generate some in-depth discourse on this, important and earnest submission, before very long.

I am also hoping that the Civil Service responsible for advising government on housing policy, together with this considerate Labour government, which has just been elected, will consider and fully examine these special new policy proposals for remedying the present housing crisis.

The first question to ask is, how can my solution help?

There are two aspects. The first is about how to make all local housing markets across Britain work like free-market economic models.

This would involve replacing estate agency as we know it with a new, better and properly licensed service which I am calling Residential House Agents or (RHAs). This is the first radical change. These buyer and renter-advising agents would primarily work for buyers and renters instead of for sellers, as happens at present.

The job of these new Residential House Agents (RHAs) would be not only to sell or indeed let individual owner’s houses but more importantly would find and secure the houses which their contracted client(s) are seeking both for themselves and their families – whether such clients are wishing to buy or to rent.

Individual RHAs working with clients would need to have gained an approved new qualification showing their level of competence. The reason for this is that the existing estate agency service breaks the economic market rules and generally talks prices up. This skews all residential property marketplaces by over-valuing most of the individual houses and flats. This is a fundamental misrepresentation and is damaging all the housing marketplaces across Britain.

What is needed instead is a service that records all genuine offers (whether to buy or to rent), and immediately submits these to the relevant vendor (or the landlord if for rentals), for consideration. After the decision is made and one of the offers is accepted by the vendor or the landlord, the RHA handling this will arrange for a pre-worded lock-out agreement or contract with that vendor as well as with their legal adviser such that they all agree not to accept any other offer for the agreed period of time that it should take for the conveyancing to be concluded (or the tenancy agreement if its a letting). In essence a newly prescribed lock-out agreement.

Once the sale or letting is completed in this way, the RHA would collect their fee from the satisfied buyer or renter, via the solicitor dealing with completing the transaction (or from the landlord if appropriate). See the other articles on the website explaining this in more detail.

One other key advantage of introducing these proposals would be that there would no longer be a need for a Council Tax Revaluation, as this method of valuation would be superseded by the market valuation procedures set down in these new proposals. This, in itself, would save the government a great deal of money as well as civil servant time.

The second radical change, deals with the town and country planning rules relating to residential property. What it proposes is the substantial change necessary to make the best and most efficient use of all housing units, whether already built, or yet to be constructed.

A main reason for this is that housing is in great demand as well as in unprecedentedly short supply. As a result, each viable existing housing unit should be zoned within the local Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP), such that whenever that property becomes vacant (and/or changes hands), the appropriate NDP zoning for that house or flat must take effect. For example, if the house was previously used as a second home, but it has subsequently become zoned on the NDP for local housing use, then after the vacation of the property, the new use must comply with the current NDP zoning. Enforcement action could follow wherever this is not the case.

Clearly, because it is the local town or parish council that draws up local NDPs, the best organisation to administer this would be that same one. I therefore propose that all residential planning decisions should be devolved to each local town or parish council to have them determined exclusively and in accord with their adopted NDP.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing an adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP). See ‘The house price affordability crisis’ on the web site for more information.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP.

This would mean the existing arrangements for regional councils to decide such planning applications would no longer be needed, which is a third radical change, one designed to speed up planning decisions a great deal.

As a result, there would no longer be a need for government planning inspectors to deal with residential planning appeals centrally. In other words there would be no need for an appeal process for individual residential planning matters anymore. This would save inordinate amounts of time as well as great expense and bring much needed clarity, as to exactly which use designation each residential property should have, for the vital benefit of the town or parishes’ local housing economy, primarily of course.

For more on this please follow the link below:

The house price affordability crisis

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant

Author of:– The House Price Solution, otherwise known as The Hendry Solution.

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Our two-stage proposals for solving the price and availability of housing nationally

Planning reform is one of two main arguments currently being made for bringing forward new policies which would completely reshape local housing markets across the whole of the U.K.

The other equally pressing argument is about the inadequate way in which houses are marketed currently. Price issues are not simply because of an insufficient supply of new housing. This is not what is causing house prices to escalate beyond the reach of so many people in this country.
(For more on this, please see the other articles on this web site.)

As far as the planning part of the solution is concerned, the required planning reforms should be incorporated into new Neighbourhood Development Plans.

Set areas within each town in these plans ought to be designated as having users restricted to primary residences only – on a permanent basis.

Under these provisions, any houses not being used as primary residences prior to the designation taking effect should have the planning use reverted to primary residential use, as soon as the house in question should become vacant.

Under such proposals, those owning houses falling within such use restrictions ought to have to accept these restrictions for the good of the local community, to bring about good planning for the future of the town. (This could, of course, also cover out of town or parish locations as well.)

These new policies would allow towns to retain sufficient suitable housing for use by those in the local workforce wishing, either to buy or to rent the housing they need for their local occupancy.

The planning system should be tilted away from its excessively stringent development control method and instead be moved towards a new, open and locally focused, rules-based zoning system, based on ‘types of user’.

It is becoming clear that all towns and parishes with a housing crisis like St Ives & Porthleven in Cornwall, The South Hams in Devon, Ilfracombe in North Devon (as screened on BBC Spotlight on 30th July 2024), as well as Frome in Somerset and Whitby in North Yorkshire, should canvass for fully devolved planning decision-making powers to be provided to local town and parish councils up and down the whole country. 

The towns named above have been in the news lately as being unable to resolve the crisis in housing, endemic in their regions over several decades past, where local workers as well as the retired are concerned. All this despite more powers having been devolved to their county or regional authorities over past years. This strongly suggests a wholly different planning policy is now needed.

Shortcomings such as these ought to be tackled head on. It would seem that this is an issue needing to be raised at the very highest level and without delay. So, I’m including it here as well as referring it to my local MP. You should do the same too if you think there is a similar problem in your local area.
If you want to know what to ask them, ask why they aren’t changing the way houses are both planned for and marketed, to finally resolve the poorly performing, over-priced and obdurate housing markets around the whole country?

I am saying towns and their associated hinterlands should zone all existing and future housing within their administrative areas into the following specific categories and document these within the current Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These criteria should all be enshrined within new and upgraded Neighbourhood Development Plans lasting at least for five years at a time.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing an adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP). See ‘The house price affordability crisis’ on the web site for more information.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP.

Owner occupation: (by those working locally or retired)

Affordable to buy: (for those starting off in life and by those working locally)

Private rental: (by those working locally)

Social housing lettings: (by those working locally or retired)

Second homes: (for those not working locally)

Holiday lettings:
(If considered advantageous planning-wise, a mix of these user designations, which should be specific to each individual house, might be allowed in the same street or location.)

This would give planners, advising and, acting in accordance with democratically elected local councillors, appropriate authority to oversee how the local environment should be developed and nurtured, taking into account present community aspirations.

Towns and Parish councils which only have the current right to comment on planning applications within their area, should instead be given the power to decide them. This would be an absolute game-changer.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should be delegated to all local town or parish councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need.

This way, genuinely democratic decisions may be arrived at using local decision-makers whom are best able to understand what the current needs of the community are at any particular time.

Planning enforcement should fully apply to such new use criteria and should naturally be fully implemented by the appropriate planning enforcement authorities.

For one thing, these proposals would have the effect of limiting the amount of holiday lets within each town and this would be one of the best methods to solve the present housing crisis.

If you investigate, the overall lack of housing supply is not being caused by a total lack of existing housing stocks but by too much of it being put into uses such as holiday use. “These ideas are thankfully up for debate in Parliament imminently.” says Peter Hendry, author of The House Price Solution.

Any new planning uses, should certainly define and identify precisely where in each locality, houses should be reserved for primary residences only. The preferred user-type should be defined by each local planning authority – in consultation with local owners, but the local planning authority alone should of course have the final say.

No holiday lets, no socially rented units and of course no second homes should generally be permitted In certain zones. Instead, properties there should be reserved for local buyers and renters alone.

Having this would be equivalent to the construction of previously set but demonstrably unachievable house-building targets. The advantage would be that the housing released this way would be exactly where it would be required within each town and parish location.

Local areas desperately need this. In this way local communities could benefit from a re-designation of sufficient residential properties, as may be required, without having to ruin the existing built environment with excessive and inappropriate over-development.

As the property which would be involved would have already been built, this policy could be brought in without undue delay. After all, in most cases, this was what these properties were originally built for in the first place!

There certainly needs to be further regulation of the use of residential property, so that enough housing  can be retained for local people to buy or to rent. Otherwise, whole communities will be ‘hollowed out’ by holiday lets etc., as was explained and has been happening for some time, especially in tourism hot spots.

This web site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed as well as bringing in more effective planning controls.

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution

How to Improve all local housing markets in England and Wales

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant

Author of:– The House Price Solution

All your comments on this subject would be appreciated.

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The best way to solve the shortage of supply of available houses to rent or buy across the whole of Britain

There is a ‘middle way’ between central government trying to coerce local government into granting unwanted planning approvals for contentious residential housing developments and opposition governments becoming elected by saying they would bring back compulsory housing targets!

It is to allow local town and parish councils to determine residential planning permissions and by so doing, manage and maintain the balance of their own local housing supply and demand.

To achieve this I am campaigning for a complete transfer of decision-making powers for the granting of residential planning approvals, which would give local parish and town councils full responsibility to bring forward effective development plans and be able to grant planning approvals in accordance with these without interference by central government.

In other words the responsibility to balance the use of all residential property should be assigned to local parish and town councils in order to meet existing and future demand for the right type of residential development within their area.

This would make such councils active in ensuring that new and existing residential property, within their jurisdiction, would allow for a user-spread which is fully able to accommodate future demand for housing within the local residential property pool under their control.

Enabling this would be enabling real town planning. If given this responsibility, each district and its local planning committees would be expected to balance the demands for each type of residential property user in their area, so that those requiring housing in its various forms should be able to obtain it.

In this way, each area would be empowered to succeed in providing housing for its own residents. This could result in all areas within the Britain becoming able to house its local inhabitants adequately.

What we need is ‘Local’ Democracy, ‘Local’ Accountability.

This proposal would work by completely replacing the current top-down residential planning policies, which are failing and demonstrably insufficient. I ask that this new proposal for root and branch change should be fully examined, scrutinised, debated and after all of that, be inaugurated.

For more details follow the link below:

The house price affordability crisis

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant

Author of:– The House Price Solution, otherwise known as The Hendry Solution.

All we need are our forward-looking councillors to get together and vote for these changes. Those who want to represent their constituents will be keen to examine these new proposals, discuss their merits, and champion their adoption soon.

This is a no more nonsense solution for housing, by balancing demand and supply in each separate local area within Britain.

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What is causing ever accelerating house prices relative to most peoples’ pay

I have researched what’s causing house prices to rise and fall, as they have over several decades recently.

Having seen programs like BBC Two – Britain’s Housing Crisis, What Went Wrong?
it is clear that more detailed and renewed consideration is necessary to avoid further damage to our housing economy.

The BBC’s recently televised programs explain what the economists currently believe is causing the house price crisis facing homebuyers today.
However,  I myself have come to a very different conclusion from that of the academic community. This might be something to do with the fact that I was trained as a valuation surveyor in the sixties & seventies and I’ve watched the continued cycles of price changes from then, into and through the next millennium – with increasing incredulity.
Seeing this happening, up front and personal so to speak, and knowing how others were feeling about this, has driven me to find and diagnose the real causes. My explanations are not from the viewpoint of an economist but are exclusively from that of a qualified valuer or a working surveyor’s standpoint.

The conclusions I’ve reached are therefore not only unique and easy to understand but are fully able to be used to remedy the house price crisis which we are now experiencing.
What follows is a brief explanation of my findings. The rest of my web site explains my reasoning in full and I hope you enjoy what I am able to describe to you here.

What are actually causing ever accelerating house prices relative to most people’s pay levels are two separate Financialisation anomalies which are both culprits causing house price crises within our British housing markets.
They act rather like a sort of fog, wreaking havoc for those driving their cars but instead, this state of confusion is allowing excessive pricing to not only exist but to accelerate, especially during times of financial stress. My conclusion explains why during such times as we have seen, particularly more recently, house prices tend to keep on spiralling upwards, before the inevitable correction.

If both of these two legislative anomalies were to be removed, housing markets across Britain would start to match general affordability and would also become price stable. This would bring desperately needed price affordability back to those communities that need this for their very survival.

The legislative instruments creating these two anomalies were both conceived a good long time ago. It is therefore perhaps understandable that they have remained intact because each seemed logical when they were originally made into law.

In chronological order, the first of these (anomalies) was the logic of extending the work of estate agents to cover both sides of the sale process of individual houses, both on behalf of buyers buying and sellers owning these.

The original purpose of having estate agents, going back more than a century, was to create specialised offices, essentially to advise large estates belonging to landed gentry for whenever they wished to dispose of land and buildings deemed surplus to requirements. In addition, these offices would negotiate any purchases on behalf of the large landed estates. The estate offices would work solely on behalf of their employers, with a view to negotiating the best price able to be negotiated as and when required. 

The Estate Agents Act 1979 (enacted over 40 years ago), has since enabled estate agents legally to represent single house owners in selling such property as well as to allow any house buyer out there to also be represented. Unfortunately, doing this is causing what we now know of today as ‘Financialisation’ of the housing markets.

It is clear today that for individual house sales, agents should be limited to having to act for and advise the buyer primarily not the seller as well – in order to avoid causing the degree of house price inflation to which I am referring. However, to achieve this would require a change in the Estate Agents Act legislation.

A further explanation about this is given in the web page entitled: ‘This House Price Solution is devised to resolve the current housing crisis completely’. The link is below.

This House Price Solution is devised to resolve the current housing crisis completely

This explains that true market prices can only be determined by supply and demand in a perfect marketplace. In a perfect marketplace, the whole amount of homes on the market would be sold and the demand for them would also be fully satisfied at all times. The present UK housing market as a whole, is therefore very far from perfect!

IF, housing markets around the whole country were near perfect, economically speaking, it wouldn’t take a year or more for each house-move to happen. Houses and flats going onto the market would take much less than a year to attract a buyer ready to complete on their purchase. 

There would then be fewer unsold and empty properties waiting to find buyers. Supply and demand would be in balance. House prices would enable this to happen and would facilitate sales to take place more swiftly than upwards of a year.

On the rental side of things, here markets are in a very different situation. There are far more people wanting to rent than there are rental properties available. Also, the supply of flats and houses is shrinking currently, which is forcing rent-levels to inflate. Demand for these properties seriously outstrips supply, economically speaking. Here, the obvious solution clearly has to be to provide more properties available for rent.

It should be noted however, if there were to be less unsold properties at any one time, there would be a lessening of demand for properties to rent, because more tenants would’ve become buyers! Therefore, improving buyers’ markets would clearly help with lessening the rental-demand side of things as well. That would be an important added bonus for both marketplaces, which is why ‘The House Price Solution’ is the final answer.

The second, and equally damaging piece of legislation for house prices has been the longterm use of some of the provisions enacted under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 (conceived over 70 years ago). This Act was the first major one to start directing how and when land could be developed, or used for different purposes. It specifically provided for such decisions ultimately to be decided using powers vested in the Secretary of State to appoint a planning inspector. These officers are effectively appointed by central government acting on behalf of The Crown, as being the ultimate owner of all land outright sitting above the legal estates granted in fee, such as freehold interests.

(For those who want to know a little more about land tenure this goes back in essence to William The Conquerer, after which time all land in Britain effectively belonged to The Crown. A freehold title granted by The Crown can be an estate in fee . An estate in fee simple, for example, is the highest estate possible with the least restrictions. However, even that state of ownership is subject to the laws of the land as and whenever they may receive Royal Assent.)

Rather importantly, there has just recently been a new Act of parliament which received Royal Agent on Thursday 26th October 2023. It augments the operation of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 (as now amended). This new Act of parliament is called the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.
It has been prepared by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and comprises approximately 530 pages, It underpins the government’s current levelling up agenda and covers among other things, provisions concerning local democracy and town and country planning. It covers additional details about Local Plan making and Neighbourhood Planning for example.

However, in this newly enacted legislation the Secretary of State still retains the power to finally determine planning appeals by using the existing method of appointing a planning inspector to determine planning applications on appeal, irrespective of the views of the local community or even the local authority, including ones submitted under the new Local and/or Neighbourhood Development Plan rules.

I contend that modern-day decisions on things like land use and planning should, from now on, be allowed to be made locally and democratically, rather than autocratically or dictatorially as happens currently using the existing powers vested in the Secretary of State to appoint a planning inspector.

I contend that whenever a planning decision has been decided at local level, that decision should no longer be able to be superseded on appeal by a planning inspector appointed by central government.

Whilst such determinations may have appeared to have worked well initially in the distant past, as the years have gone by, things of this nature have become more and more fraught. Nowadays, we are all very much aware of the discord surrounding decisions ultimately being decided by planning inspectors whom are appointed by central government. This often happens when they simply do not accord with what local communities actually want and require of course.

Unfortunately again, the damaging aspect of such centrally made decisions is what we know of today as ‘Financialisation’. The result of decisions such as these, being made remote from the communities directly involved, causes progressive damage to the very community that these were originally intended to protect. This occurs through the loss of essential residential uses such as those for local first-time buyers. The result is houses which are mostly priced out of local reach, for local people, and this is the last thing these people currently require.

My suggestion for resolving this is for government to vest those representing local communities with full responsibility for determining local residential planning applications depending on which uses are most needed within the community and as provided for within the democratically agreed and adopted Neighbourhood Plans, subject only to an appeal on a point of law (for example, if there had been some misdirection or misuse of the legal framework of the application or of its tenure of ownership).

[For clarification, this should also mean that instances of National Policy Framework considerations should be within the remit of local planning committees to make determinations.]

It would clearly require a significant change to the existing Town and Country Planning legislation in order to accommodate these new fundamentals.

My conclusion is that with the twin changes pointed out here, local land use and the resulting prices of property being built, would be restored to price levels affordable by those living in their respective areas. Buyers could fairly compete to purchase residential property from sellers without interference by estate agents acting for sellers. Planning uses could be decided democratically using previously approved Neighbourhood Plans.

I contend there would be no downside from a governmental point of view, in accepting such proposals as I have outlined here.

As I say, top down solutions such as planning ones, especially residential planning applications, not only fail often but are becoming extremely unpopular for the reasons outlined. Devolving decision-making to those with the most to loose, (and/or gain), is the only logical alternative. I ask that these proposals therefore be thoroughly debated and I recommend that they be adopted very soon in order to deal with and fully resolve the exceptional difficulties now being experienced in satisfying modern-day housing need at affordable prices.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should be delegated to all local town or parish councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need.

This way, genuinely democratic decisions may be arrived at using local decision-makers whom are best able to understand what the current needs of the community are at any particular time.

As a retired residential property valuer I remain convinced that if democratically elected local councillors were to be granted full authority to decide local residential planning applications, the effect of this could resolve the whole housing crisis.

Decisions made by such elected representatives would not be based upon NIMBYism ‘Not In My Back Yard’; quite the contrary!

Instead it would be a question of ‘IN My Back Yard’, as these councillors would be representing the wishes and needs of the local community – not simply trying to resist necessary change!

There could be no finer outcome than this, especially where residential property is concerned, because with this solution these councillors could work to actually resolve the housing crisis which we are now all being affected by, particularly owing to its increasing severity.

Outside links to the BBC:

Episode 1—Series 1 – How politicians promised home ownership, but with policies that sent prices out of reach.

Episode 2—Series 1 – How the strain on housing – from new builds to social homes – reached breaking point.

Also:

Watch exclusive interviews with the programme’s contributors

Finally, for more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution

How to Improve all local housing markets in England and Wales

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Housing Valuation Consultant

Author of:– The House Price Solution otherwise known as The Hendry Solution.