The BPF has warned that several UKIP policies on planning send the “wrong message”.
The organisation was responding to an interview with UKIP housing spokesman Andrew Charalambous in this weekend’s Estates Gazette.
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The BPF has warned that several UKIP policies on planning send the “wrong message”.
The organisation was responding to an interview with UKIP housing spokesman Andrew Charalambous in this weekend’s Estates Gazette.
Director of policy Ian Fletcher suggested it was “unhelpful” to forbid green belt development all together.
He urged instead taking a “proper, considered look” at green belt designations, adding that the policy related to planning more than environmental designations.
Fletcher was responding to Charalambous’s proposals for binding local referenda on major schemes, as well as his plans to limit green belt development, strengthen tenant rights and bring empty properties and brownfield land back into use.
He continued: “Introducing the potential for a local referendum to overturn permissions that are often hard to come by gives the wrong messages to those investors and applicants. Local residents can already get involved in the planning system, and more should be made of those opportunities so that the process is collaborative rather than the antagonistic battle it can become.”
However, Fletcher expressed support for a number of UKIP policies, such as council tax exemptions for landlords that refurbish long-term empty properties, paying housing benefit directly to landlords and increasing grant funding.
He added: “Using council tax as not only a stick, but an incentive to bring empty homes back into use, would also have our support. As would prioritising the restoration of grant funding for social housing. Council housing estate renewal is certainly a topic that warrants attention in the manifestos, but there will be a variety of solutions depending on the locality and needs of the residents. Demolish and redesign will not always be the solution.
“A policy of interest-free loans for landlords in exchange for rent reductions is probably well-intentioned in seeking to encourage better property at the lower end of the market, but would be extraordinarily difficult to police.”
chris.berkin@estatesgazette.com
