The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has added two new planners to its planning team in a bid to make sure that the industry is represented at future local plan examinations.
The trade body claimed this move – funded by its larger members – was necessary to ensure local authorities were ‘abiding by their responsibilities’ under the National Planning Policy Framework to assess housing need and allocate sufficient land to meet that need.
The HBF has complained that some local authorities were not conducting an ‘objective assessment’ of their housing needs while others were distorting their work by subjective considerations and policy assumptions such as citing the effect of the recession or environmental/heritage constraints.
The body also insisted that some local authorities were relying on unviable and non-deliverable development in regeneration areas to bulk out their five-year land supplies.
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