Section: Legislation
Housing and Planning Bill Receives Royal Assent
Posted 13.05.16
The Housing and Planning Act received Royal Assent today (13th May).
The Act will see the introduction of measures that include underpinning the voluntary Right to Buy agreement with housing associations, supporting the doubling of the number of custom and self-build homes by 2020, tackling rogue landlords and speeding up the neighbourhood planning process.
The Act will:
- Help more people own their own home by extending Right to Buy level discounts to housing association tenants - measures underpinning the Voluntary Agreement with the National Housing Federation.
- Place a duty on local planning authorities to actively promote the development of Starter Homes and embed them in the planning system.
- Unlock brownfield land to provide homes faster, requiring local authorities to prepare, maintain and publish local registers of specified land.
- Support the doubling of the number of custom-built and self-built homes to 20,000 by 2020.
- Ensure that every area has a local plan.
- Reform the compulsory purchase process to make it clearer, fairer and faster.
- Simplify and speed up neighbourhood planning.
- Require social tenants on higher incomes to pay fairer rents.
- Place a duty on councils to consider selling their higher value housing assets when they fall vacant.
- Tackle rogue landlords though a number of measures to give local authorities more powers.
- Improve access to local information on the private rented sector - allowing local authorities to access data held by the Tenancy Deposit Protection schemes.
- Reduce the regulatory controls for private registered providers of housing to increase their freedoms to manage their housing stock efficiently and effectively.
- Enable lead enforcement authority for estate agents.
For more information on the Act and its legislative stages click here.
