The Paperwork Estate Opens
LONDON, England — Labour has announced the recruitment of 420 additional planning officers, marking a significant milestone in Britain’s ambitious national programme to increase the number of people authorised to discuss whether houses might eventually be built.
The government originally promised 300 additional planners. It has now exceeded that pledge. Unfortunately, the much larger objective of delivering 1.5 million homes remains considerably harder than hiring people to examine the paperwork. According to the government’s announcement of planning reforms, new technology and delegation rules should speed up decisions on straightforward applications.
Britain has therefore discovered the first rule of modern construction: before laying one brick, appoint somebody to investigate whether the brick has permission to exist.
Planning Officer Recruitment: Britain Builds an Entire Department Before One House
The new recruits represent genuine additional capacity in a system suffering from staff shortages and delays. The Royal Town Planning Institute has said as much for years. Nevertheless, recruitment statistics are much easier to celebrate than finished houses.
Transcript: A Government Spokesman on the Housing Target
Asked at a briefing to explain the difference between hiring planners and building homes, a government spokesman gave the following answers, as recorded by two reporters who later compared notes.
“We promised more homes, and we’re delighted to announce more people who can discuss homes.”
“How many families have moved in?”
“That information will be available following a detailed departmental assessment.”
“Do the planners have somewhere to live?”
“Some are currently awaiting planning permission.”
In the village of Lower Hesitation, the council employs seven planners, four heritage consultants, three biodiversity specialists and one exhausted man named Derek who actually knows how to build a wall. Derek has been asked to stop construction until everyone else has completed the relevant training. He has been given a lanyard in the meantime.
PlanAssist and AI Planning Decisions: Artificial Intelligence Joins the Queue
Ministers have also announced plans to expand PlanAssist, a system designed to help process planning applications. Early testing reportedly cut time spent on certain planning tasks by 58%. For routine householder applications, the government says processing times could fall from eight weeks to four.
That is potentially useful progress. But it raises a delicious question: if an applicant previously waited eight weeks to be told no, is receiving the refusal in four weeks a housing revolution?
The Conservatory in Kent
Bernard Webb of Kent has spent thirteen months trying to build a conservatory, and recently put his proposal through the new system.
“The new computer examined my proposal in twelve seconds. It decided the conservatory might cast an emotional shadow over the neighbour’s geraniums.”
Mr Webb has appealed. The geraniums have retained solicitors. The Planning Portal confirmed receipt of the appeal, and of the geraniums’ response, which ran to nine pages and included a photograph of the geraniums.
Labour’s 1.5 Million Homes Target: The Question Nobody Can Build Their Way Out Of
Independent analysis of Labour’s housing target indicates that the government’s ambition remains off track. Officials have increasingly acknowledged that delivery will be extremely challenging. The difficulty is not simply the planning process. Construction depends on investment, land, infrastructure, skilled labour, local demand and developers actually wanting to build, as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government knows better than most.
But political announcements tend to favour whichever part of the process can be counted most conveniently. Planning officers recruited? Countable. Applications processed? Countable. Ministerial speeches delivered? Unfortunately, extremely countable. Families finally obtaining affordable homes? Considerably less convenient.
Councils report mixed feelings about the new arrivals. One planning team in the Midlands said the extra officers were welcome, but that the extra desks they would need had not been approved. “We have the people,” a team leader said. “We are waiting for permission to give them somewhere to sit.” A second council said it was recruiting a planner to assess applications for additional planners, a post expected to be filled by the time it is no longer needed.
The Nation’s First Paperwork Estate
The Institute for Residential Delay has produced a study proposing a new development. Rather than build 500 houses, developers would construct 500 planning offices. Each office would employ two planners, each of whom would review applications for two additional offices. Within six years, the study found, Britain could technically solve its planning employment shortage while producing no housing whatsoever.
Whitehall considers the proposal promising. The government argues that faster approvals and more staff will help genuine building projects progress, which is a reasonable aspiration. But the public ultimately needs homes, not attractive statistics about the administrative journey towards them. Until then, Britain’s national housebuilding strategy can be summarised in one sentence.
The country is short of houses, but apparently it has finally achieved a surplus of people qualified to explain why.
5 Humorous Observations on the Planning System
- Britain now measures housing success by how many people have permission to consider building something.
- 420 planners for 1.5 million homes. That’s about 3,571 houses each. I can’t even assemble one flat-pack wardrobe without a marriage counsellor.
- The AI refuses your loft conversion in twelve seconds. That’s the fastest “no” in British history, and I include my teenage years.
- You can’t build a conservatory because it casts an emotional shadow on geraniums. The geraniums have solicitors. Meanwhile your tenant has a damp patch shaped like Wales.
- Britain’s the only country where a housing shortage and a planning surplus exist side by side. It’s like starving next to a library of cookbooks.
