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16
Jun
Fears ‘land banking’ will prevent housing target being met in North Yorkshire
Councillors have raised concern that “land banking” by developers may prevent North Yorkshire Council from reaching its housing targets.
The Conservative-run council is drawing up a new local plan, which will outline where development, including houses, can be built over the next 20 years.
At a council executive meeting in Scarborough today (June 16), senior Tories backed a new timetable for the plan, which aims to adopt the blueprint in October 2029.
But some raised concerns that there is no government policy to stop developers from acquiring land earmarked for new housing and then just holding on to it for future profit — a practice known as land banking.
This could prevent the council from meeting its new housing targets, which would have a knock-on effect each year.
It comes as the Labour government has increased North Yorkshire’s housing target from 1,361 homes a year to 4,156 a year, which has increased pressure on the council to identify land for new homes.
Cllr Simon Myers, the executive councillor for housing, said the government’s mandatory targets had left the authority a “hostage to fortune”.
He said:
What they are not keen to do is enact policies that mean people cannot land bank, which means we are not held hostage to fortune on new housing targets because developers don’t develop the sites.
In case those present don’t realise, if we do not meet our housing targets then the figures go in the next year. We don't just not meet them.
'Houses won’t get built'
Nic Harne, the council’s corporate director for community development, told an executive meeting that land banking was a “huge question area for policy”.
He said:
One of the key representations we made when the new housing methodology was coming in was that this is very much focussed on the supply side of it, but if the demand side is not there then there is a risk the houses won’t get built.
I think we are starting to see some of that risk come through. Currently, our numbers have never hit 4,000 in a year.
Matthew Pennycook MP.
The government said it has consulted on reforms to the planning system which aim to “speed up homes being built”.
In January, Matthew Pennycook, Labour minister of state for housing, communities and local government, said:
The government is currently consulting on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, including new policy designed to ensure major development proposals are capable of being implemented within a reasonable period – taking into account tenure mix, local market conditions and development history of the site.
North Yorkshire Council was supposed to adopt a local plan within five years of its creation on April 1, 2023.
But it is now working to an adoption date of October 26, 2029.
The council blames government changes to the planning system for the delay.
However, the delay has raised concern among campaigners that the move may lead to more speculative applications from developers because there is no up-to-date planning blueprint allocating where homes should be built.
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