Many scapegoats have been suggested as to why the UK never comes close to building the 300,000 net new homes a year successive governments have demanded. Moribund planners, nimby councillors and residents, tight-fisted banks, greedy landowners and an under-skilled workforce have all stood accused. The latest culprit – according to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, reverting to a familiar trope – are bats and newts.

There are so many things wrong with this suggestion. One of them is that any single solution won’t make any difference. Building houses at scale involves a series of distinct but connected stages that can take a decade or more for a developer to navigate. Any one of these can run into problems. Let’s take a look at these…

Things to do first

First, they have to identify the site, do a deal with the landowner and get it accepted by the planning authority (ideally by having it allocated). Then the application has to be lodged, possibly in two stages, outline and full; each of which might involve planning committees and appeals. Once approved, the project can be seen as something definite but the hurdles are not done with.

Any application will come with a raft of conditions, some of which need to be discharged (performed and signed off) before work can start. These may involve discussions with statutory undertakers like Thames Water and SSE, who have their own priorities and timescales, or with the planning authority about adopting the new roads. Section 106 agreements need to be entered into to govern developer contributions. The money has to be raised. Contractors need to be appointed. Finally, within three years if the permission is not to lapse, the first spade goes in the ground.

Assuming they’re built, there are uncertainties before the project can be regarded as finished. These can include bickerings about viability assessments (which can demonstrate that the scheme is unprofitable, for example as regards the affordable housing provision) or disputes about management agreements. Some dwellings produce their own problems, with the Building Safety Regulator needing to sign off “higher risk” buildings (including tall ones).

In recent years, even more surprising obstacles have appeared. The Verge reports that the almost insatiable demands of data centres mean that new homes can’t be built in some parts of London as “there’s simply not enough electricity to go round.”

Selling the product

Then there’s the question of selling the homes: the easy part, perhaps – or perhaps not.

Some will be destined for housing associations. These are limited as to the rents they can charge and have maintenance costs on their existing housing stock so will haggle over the price. As for the rest, there’s only a finite supply of purchasers with homes to sell or, if first-timers, the necessary deposit. Too many homes released into the local market at one time will depress the price. As a result, developers might hold back one development for a more propitious time.

There are various ways the government can intervene in the housing market. One proposal, that of removing CGT exemption on principal residences over £1.5m, is currently at the blue-sky phase. A more common lever is stamp duty. It seems changes are being proposed to this, including moving the charge from the purchaser to the vendor. Indeed, the reforms may include stamp duty morphing into another kind of tax altogether.

Snakes and ladders

The whole system is intensely complex and interlinked and has many things that can go wrong. It can be compared to a massive, Heath Robinson-style machine with hundreds of moving parts. Many of these are very rusty and designed by many different people, for different reasons and at different times. All these parties continue to operate it but not all want the same result. At any point, the whole thing can over-heat, jam up or go into reverse.

Or imagine a high-stakes game of snakes and ladders, with lots of different people rolling what may or may not be loaded dice and then arguing about what “five” in this context means. There are plenty of snakes but not many ladders. What are the chances of getting to the top without delays?

All of the above is just a whistle-stop tour of the system. The main point to take from this is that no one reform in any area – bats and newts or anything else – is going to solve the problem. One might as well try to fix capitalism, the NHS or global warming by one measure. It can’t be done and Rachel Reeves should know better than even to hint at this.

Time and money

Developments require a lot of both. One developer I spoke to this week described a twenty-year schedule for a 600-home development that’s currently about half-way through. Delays caused by approval by the Building Safety Regulator can be in excess of a year. The plans for the Kennet Centre in Newbury have been brewing for five years, and in Sandleford for more like fifteen. No spade is yet in the ground in either site.

As for money, six or seven-figure sums can easily be spent on applications and the reports. True, there are paybacks if the approval is granted. However, all this needs to be laid out in advance. Money is not as cheap to borrow as it used to be.

Legislation and more legislation

This is, for a government, the surest sign that It Is Serious about dealing with a problem. If there’s something that seems wrong, pass a law about it. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill – “the government’s plan to get Britain building again and deliver economic growth” – is currently in the Lords. One major bill per department per parliament is normally all the legislative programme permits.

However, it seems that another one is being contemplated for this subject, which perhaps shows the government Is Really Serious about it. It also doesn’t evince a great deal of confidence in the first one.

Perhaps this first bill was genuinely inadequate. Perhaps the Chancellor and others have since been influenced by Tufton Street think tanks regarding bats and newts and related matters. Perhaps it just shows RR’s ambition for growth: although, as David Attenborough observed, “anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.” Rachel Reeves has claimed to be the second of these.

Nature

This is certainly protected by a range of legislation. There are two views of this: that it’s an attempt to thwart development; or that it’s necessary. Ever since the start of the industrial revolution about 250 years ago, nature has been regarded with indifference in most developments. This has led us in particular, and the world in general, into the mess we are now in.

Some of these measures, like nutrient neutrality and biodiversity net gain, are fairly new. Planning authorities have (often with insufficient guidance) been forced to deal with these as best they can. However, they address clear problems that few now regard as irrelevant. Issues like river pollution, habitat loss and tree planting have become mainstream. Regulation has been partly the cause, and partly the result, of this.

Most developers probably get the idea that a building project that doesn’t trash the landscape and which provides enhancements is beneficial. Increasingly, people are demanding this. A good example is in Compton, where Homes England has engaged with the local community to address this aspect on the Pirbright site. Others could be cited.

Not all developers, however, agree. To them, nature is annoying and the regulations that seek to protect it are designed to thwart their ambitions. It is these people who can take comfort from RR’s “bats and newts” remarks. They were, so the Chancellor has confirmed, right all along; while those who’ve been trying to be compliant have wasted their time and money.

Bats again

It’s worth turning to the HS2 “bat tunnel”  which is often cited as a prime folly, both of environmental legislation and of the HS2 project generally.

The Bat Conservation Trust, admittedly perhaps not wholly objective, claims that the decision to build it was taken “not by conservationists…[but] HS2 Ltd suggested it.” Even HS2 admits that “the structure is built with future growth in mind, providing space for two additional tracks that could be used for freight or for a future local rail service between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes.” As for the costs, in November 2024, the then Transport Secretary described it as just the “tip of the iceberg” of the project’s mismanagement.

This therefore seems to be something that HS2 wanted for a range of reasons but probably paid too much for. None the less, it has become a potent poster child for the anti-nature lobby.

Regulation

Nature is far from the only aspect of a development that’s surrounded by legal safeguards. Everything from workers’ safety to insulation standards and from the protection of travellers to the need for sustainable transport is now regulated, often more than once (for example in the NPPF and in the local plan). As with the nature arguments above, opinions are divided as to their necessity.

It’s inevitable that any regulation makes it harder to get things done. Whether the benefits of haste or growth outweigh those of careful reflection or protection is yet another matter on which many disagree. Which brings us to…

Process

The planning system, as administered by the 320-odd planning authorities in England, is often cited as the biggest brake on development. The planning departments, often under-staffed, under-resourced and over-worked, are regularly blamed. They are, however, forced to deal with intensely complex legislation and steer a path which, to err on either side of, might result in an expensive appeal.

Another traditional target is planning committees. These consider only perhaps two per cent of applications and are used when a local councillor calls the matter in or when more than a certain number of objections, typically ten, are received. The accusation is that, as well as slowing the process, the members sometimes make perverse decisions based on emotion and political considerations. A suggestion was made to me by one developer this week that a group of out-of-area planning experts would do a better job.

As with so many things, this would cure some problems and create others. Could sufficient experts be found? Who would pay for them? Could their decisions be regarded as truly impartial? At least the local or political motivations of elected members are normally obvious. Could the same be said of so-called dispassionate experts?

There’s also the important point about local democracy. Councillors are elected to represent their residents. If these people widely object to something, it may be through sheer nimby-ism (in which case the planning policies should prevail). However, it’s also possible that the residents have a point, in which case a human and local approach is needed. This is what committees provide. Abolishing committees, as has been suggested, might save time: but at what cost?

I’ve covered many planning issues in West Berkshire. Several have produced perverse decisions, whether decided by officers or (more eye-catchingly) by committee.

Control

There currently is a planning system in the country. Successive governments have proposed radical reform, but often do no more than tinker with it. Perhaps tinkering is all that can be done given that the labyrinthine process is not wholly in its control.

But tinkering has sometimes produced unintended consequences. The Help to Buy scheme, dropped in 2022, got many people on the housing ladder but cost money and resulted in scandals like the Persimmon bonus of 2017. Attempts to reduce the inflated hope value of land resulted in a contraction of supply. Tweaking stamp duty can lead to an increase in demand which, if not matched by supply, disadvantage the people it’s meant to help. The whole business of outsourcing home building to the private sector has removed from the government’s control the principal means of implementing its policies.

Most other aspects of this complex snakes and ladders game government has virtually no control over, much as it would like to pretend otherwise. Land supply, the priorities of developers, interest rates, commercial agreements and the availability of labour are matters that it can, at best, influence only imperfectly, indirectly or by intervening in the unforgiving and far more complex machine of capitalism.

The decision-making process, however, is in its control. The government set it up and it could, if it had the will (which it doesn’t) tear it down. It constantly fiddles with it, but this rarely seems to improve matters. Having got a machine in place, however, there’s one radical solution which doesn’t seem to have been tried.

This is to fund it properly. Specifically, this might include trying to attract the best planners from the public sector (rather than vice versa); speeding up the time taken to make decisions (which requires more officers); encouraging the appointment, perhaps for a short time, of planning “super heads”, such as often produce such dramatic improvements in the culture and performance of schools; mandating more enforcement officers; insisting on more engagement processes between officers and elected members; and rewarding qualified councillors who spend scores of effectively unpaid hours on planning committees and site visits.

This is the government’s system, after all. At present it’s like a sports car that’s being asked to operate with the engine of a moped.

Bats and newts again

It’s complex, there’s no doubt about it. As I’ve tried to explain, Rachel Reeves’ “bats and newts” comment is foolish, misleading and regressive. So too would be to blame planners, construction workers, banks, landowners or flooding experts. We’re dealing with area-changing results. Everyone involved – and there are many – turns their part of the machine only if it benefits their interests.

As to the common good, the machine as a whole should produce that although it’s slow, unpredictble and prone to breakdown. However, it’s what we have. It can’t wholly be replaced by anyone, and certainly not the government. It involves almost all aspects of of our life.

There’s another reason for my distaste for her jibe. Bats and newts are just a lazy shorthand for the whole hard-won business of recognising that we are not the only important creatures on the planet and that everything we do has consequences. Much evidence suggests that supporting bio-diversity and related matters has economic benefits.

There’s a different discussion to be had about this: the point is that most of us now get the idea that we all depend on each other for our prosperity and survival. This isn’t a wishy-washy liberal sentiment but a simple statement of fact.

Rachel Reeves’ casual and vote-chasing remark has, if we let it, set back this reality. It also implies the government is capable of influencing all the factors that can make its policies work. As regards the planning system, this isn’t true. What it’s got is imperfect influence, but not control, over every part of the machine: and complete control over the one part of it that it created but refuses to allow to operate properly.

This could also be used as a caveat against government promises in general. They have, in the UK, five years max to frame these and try to bring them to fruition. Most problems admit of (a) no such level of control and (b) of no such timescale.

The planning system is one such. The machine’s rusty and contradictory cogs turn; the game of snakes and ladders proceeds. The government can try to get more turns of the wheels or rolls of the dice but it can’t control the process to the extent it pretends. In this as other matters, it’s as well to recognise this and adjust our expectations of central intervention accordingly.

Brian Quinn