What is a ‘competitive return’ to a landowner? Parkhurst Road and the new UK planning policy environment

In the UK, contributions from landowners towards the provision of affordable housing are obtained through a process of negotiation that centres on the financial viability of each development proposal. National Planning Practice Guidance, first published in 2014 and recently revised in 2018 and 2019, provides the Government framework for these negotiations and sets parameters for the financial viability appraisals. Failure to achieve levels of affordable housing set out in local plans has been attributed to ‘gaming’ strategies employed by landowners and developers within viability negotiations. This paper examines how planning guidance has influenced financial viability appraisals. A key issue within these appraisals is the determination of a suitable return to the landowner, known as Benchmark Land Value. Using a case study approach to investigate two planning appeals and a subsequent High Court decision concerning a residential development site in London, this paper demonstrates how planning policy and practice guidance on viability can lead to reduced planning obligations being delivered. It identifies the technical concerns that need to be addressed to enable appraisals to determine land prices that are fair to landowners, whilst delivering policy-compliant levels of affordable housing, and discusses whether the revised National Planning Guidance has made those changes

Development viability assessment and the provision of affordable housing. A game of “pass the parcel”?

This paper constructs a hypothetical case study based around the Benchmark Land Value assessments within the landmark Parkhurst Road, London case decided in the High Court in April 2018. It attempts to illustrate how developers were gaming the system and how the 2014 Planning Practice Guidance aided them to do that. The discussion centres on the extent to which new 2018 National Planning Guidance has addressed the identified flaws and what additional changes might be needed to that guidance to solve any outstanding problems

The financialisation of housing land supply in England

The aim of this article is to identify the calculative practices that turn urban development planning into the supply-side of land financialisation. My focus is on the statutory planning of housing supply and the accounting procedures, or market devices, that normalise the practices of land speculation in the earliest stage of the urban development process. I provide an analysis of the accountancy regime used by planning authorities in England to evidence a 5-year supply of housing land. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon on market framing, I assess the activities of economic agents in performing or ‘formatting’ this supply, its boundaries, externalities and rules of operation. I evidence the effect of this formatting in normalising the treatment of land as a financial asset and in orienting the statutory regulation of land supply to the provision of opportunities for the capture of increased ground rent at a cost to the delivery of new homes

Problem-solving for problem-solving: Data analytics to identify families for service intervention

The article draws on Bacchi’s ideas about problematisation (2020) and links to technological solutionism as governing logics of our age, to explore the double-faceted problem-solving logic operating in the UK family policy and early intervention field. Families with certain characteristics are identified as problematic, and local authorities are tasked with intervening to fix that social problem. Local authorities thus need to identify these families for problem-solving intervention, and data analytics companies will solve that problem for them. In the article, we identify discourses of transmitted deprivation and anti-social behaviour in families and the accompanying costly public sector burden as characteristics that produce families as social problems, and discursive themes around delivering powerful knowledge, timeliness and economic efficiently in data analytic companies’ problem solving claims for their data linkage and predictive analytics systems. These discursive rationales undergird the double-faceted problem-solving for problem-solving logic that directs attention away from complex structural causes

From a property tax to a land tax – who wins, who loses?

Whilst the theoretical case in favour of a tax on the value of land (a land tax) is well established, examples of its implementation in practice are relatively few in number. Where a land tax is levied, it is often part of a suite of land and property taxes that includes transfer taxes, wealth taxes betterment and recurrent taxes on land and property. Rarely is a land tax the sole mechanism for taxing real estate. Yet there is no shortage of land tax supporters, even in countries where other forms of real estate tax have a long history. England is one such country, where real estate taxes have existed since the 17th century in one form or another. Despite coming close at the beginning of the 19th century, governments on the left, right and in the centre ground of political discourse have not implemented a land tax. In the land tax debate throughout this period, there was an absence of empirical research to underpin the positions adopted by either proponents of a land tax or defenders of the status quo. It was not until 1964 that a small pilot exercise was undertaken to investigate the implications of introducing a land tax in England. This seems odd given that frequently cited criticisms of a land tax centre on its practical difficulties. This paper, therefore, looks at some of the consequences of switching from recurrent real estate taxes that are based on the value of land and improvements to one that is based on the value of land only. Focusing on one local authority area in the south east of England, the paper answers the following questions: how might the valuation of land be undertaken in a developed economy where most transactional evidence relates to land together with improvements, and what are the revenue implications of switching from a tax where the liability falls on the land owner rather than the property occupier in first instance. In particular, who are the winners and losers and does expansion of the tax base to include agricultural land uses significantly increase tax revenue

Management of traditional retail markets in the United Kingdom: comparative case studies

The paper examines the current state of the management of traditional retail markets (TRM) in the United Kingdom. TRM are indoor and outdoor markets located in town and city centres across the UK, selling food, household goods, clothing and the like. The paper employs comparative analysis approach of multiple cases using an analytical framework draws from place management and retail business management literature. The study investigates eleven retail markets in the UK, including seven run by Local Councils, two privately run and two operated by Charity Trusts. The paper identifies the management challenges of TRM lie at the intersect between its private-like business entity and the management overseen by local authorities, whose roles and functions are mainly on delivering public services. Although some council markets struggle, it remains a popular model for TRM because it offers social space and inclusion which other types of markets lack. The study also highlights that the environment within which TRM operate, such as policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial aspects play an important role in influencing the performance of the markets. The paper contributes to the retail literature conceptual and empirical understanding of TRM management – the area which has been mostly neglected and under-researched. It offers an integrated analytical framework, including four dimensions of policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial environment (PIBE) to advance the current limited understanding of this traditional form of retailing and sheds light on future research in this area

Compulsory Purchase and the State Redistribution of Land: A Study of Local Authority-Private Developer Contractual Behaviour

Purpose: The compulsory purchase of land forms the subject of much legal and urban regeneration research. However, there has been little examination of the contractual arrangements between local authorities and private sector property developers that often underpin the compulsory purchase process. This paper examines local authority/private developer contractual behaviour in this context. Design/methodology/approach: An empirical examination of property development contracts made for the “Silver Hill” project in Winchester, a small city in southern England, and the Brent Cross shopping centre extension in north London. Drawing on Macneil’s (1983) relational contract theory, the paper analyses key contract terms and reviews local authority documentation related to the implementation of those terms. Findings: The contracts had two purposes: to provide a development and investment opportunity through the compulsory purchase and redistribution of private land; and to grant the private developers participating in the projects freedom to choose if they wished to take up that opportunity. While the contracts look highly “relational”, the scope for flexibility and reciprocity is both carefully planned and tightly controlled. This exposes an asymmetric power imbalance that emerges in and is rearticulated by this type of contractual arrangement. Originality/value Empirical analysis of contract terms and contractual behaviour provides a rare opportunity to scrutinise the local authority-private developer relationship underpinning both property development practice and compulsory purchase

Housing options for older people in a reimagined housing system: a case study from England

The housing options of older people now extend far beyond the traditional choice between staying put and making do, or moving to specialist housing or residential care. A flexible suite of options has emerged, centred on promoting independence and wellbeing. Valuable insights have been provided into the development, delivery, costs and benefits of these options. Light has also been cast on the experiences and preferences of older people. However, little is know about who gets what housing, where and why. This reflects a tendency within analysis to consider these different housing options in isolation. This study responds by situating the housing options of older people within wider debates about the reimagining of the housing system driven by the neoliberal transformation in housing politics. Taking a case study approach, it explores the gap between the ambitions of policy and realities of provision at the local level, relates this to the particular intersection of state practices and market mechanisms manifest in the case study and, in doing so, rises to the challenge of extending analysis of the impacts of the neoliberal approach on the right to housing to new groups and different settings

Combined Authorities and material participation: The capacity of Green Belt to engage political publics in England

The aim of this paper is to consider the passions aroused by Green Belts in their urban containment function as a political accomplishment that has the capacity to orient publics around new spaces of governance. The paper addresses what it identifies as a problem of relevance in the new Combined Authorities in England where public identity and belonging may be more firmly rooted in other places and settings. It draws on the literature on material participation to locate the capacity to foster public belonging in objects, things and settings, and considers the environmental planning designation of Green Belt as an assemblage of the human and non-human which has the power to connect and contain. In a case study of plans for Green Belt reduction in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the paper evidences the power of the non-human to mobilise public engagement and to foster territorial identity. The paper concludes by setting out an approach to public participation that foregrounds the importance of material interests and affective relations with objects and things in the formation of political communities

The Troubled Families Programme : learning about policy impact through realist case study research

This article aims to critically explore how qualitative case study research that is founded on realist principles can fundamentally enhance social policy evaluation methodologies and, in turn, provide improved learning for policy makers and practitioners. We suggest these methodological advantages are accrued through the careful construction of theory-based explanations of 'how' policy programmes work thereby addressing the limitations of quasiexperimental methods - namely a focus on and prioritisation of outcome measures. The paper situates this key argument within wider, long-standing debates about evidence-based policy-making and what constitutes 'evidence' of impact in social policy. It does so through reflection on the contentious and contradictory knowledge claims that surround the Troubled Families Programme and evaluative claims regarding its efficacy. In conclusion and looking forward, we suggest that there remains much scope to combine 'intensive' qualitative case studies with 'extensive' quantitative measures within local and national evaluations of complex, multi-dimensional social policies, such as the Troubled Families Programme