Many English urban high streets will not recover from the coronavirus crisis and should be turned into homes, the government said on Wednesday as it sought to justify dropping plans to accelerate housebuilding in rural Tory-supporting counties.
Under a proposal set out last summer, each local authority in England would have been given a revised housing target and told to designate land for either development or preservation — with a higher annual nationwide target of 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the decade.
The distribution of the homes was determined by what angry Tory MPs called a “mutant algorithm”, which would have led to a disproportionate increase in construction in the party’s heartlands in the south-east and the Cotswolds. It would have led to relatively few new houses and flats being built in northern cities.
The rebels included many senior Tories, including former prime minister Theresa May — who described the targets as undemocratic and “ill-conceived”.
In a major U-turn on Wednesday, Robert Jenrick, communities secretary, announced that the government would now update the existing algorithm that determines new housing distribution so that building is more heavily skewed towards urban areas. This would mean the biggest 20 cities in England taking 35 per cent more homes than under the initial version of the scheme.
The government is still aiming for a target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s but the priority will now be brownfield sites and urban areas.
The government said many high streets were already suffering from long-term structural changes, such as a rise in internet shopping, even before the Covid-19 crisis. That meant there were “more opportunities for creative use of land in urban areas” in the future, it said.
Mr Jenrick said the “profound impact” of Covid-19 had become clear since the start of a planning consultation months ago.
“It has magnified and accelerated patterns that already existed and while it is too soon to know for certain the scale of the long-term impact, it is very likely to present a generational challenge and opportunity to repurpose more commercial centres, offices and retail spaces into housing and mixed use,” he said.
The U-turn was welcomed by Tory MPs, including former cabinet minister Damian Green, who said he was “delighted” that the government had listened to concerns about the “notorious housing algorithm”.
Will Tanner, director of Onward, a centre-right think-tank, welcomed the “sensible” decision. “We should build where we want housing demand to grow in the future, not where demand has existed in the past.”
“Practically it’s as if the mutant algorithm never happened,” said Matthew Spry, a director at the planning consultancy Lichfields. “We need to wait to see what they actually publish, but it’s quite a volte-face from what they set out [in August], if it’s literally reverting to the old method and topping up cities by 35 per cent to reach 300,000 homes.”
Mr Spry described the government’s U-turn as a “political response [to criticism of the algorithm]” and questioned whether it would have a tangible impact on where homes are ultimately delivered, because higher targets for cities might end up being met in suburban areas.
The original plan was drawn up with heavy input from Dominic Cummings, the former all-powerful senior adviser in Number 10, who quit his job last month.
Critics of the proposals included Neil O’Brien, MP for Harborough in Leicestershire, who was recently appointed chair of a new policy board at Number 10.
Likewise, Andrew Griffith, MP for Arundel and South Downs in West Sussex, who led the rebellion — and coined the phrase “mutant algorithm” — has since taken up a role advising Mr Johnson in Downing Street.
Separately, the government said it would revise the “80:20” rule under which some state funding for housing is skewed towards more prosperous, fast-growing areas. It will be reconsidered with a “new principle” to ensure that funding from the £7bn National Home Building Fund is not skewed towards London and the south-east.
It has also announced a new urban centre recovery task force to advise on the regeneration of town and city centres, with members including Peter Freeman, the developer behind the revamp of King’s Cross in London.
