Major, Minor

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees,
books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

One of the standard questions that BMJ asks when we visit merchants for one of our profile feature, is about the make-up of their customer base. Whether it’s mainly the RMI market, if they serve the housebuilder and developer sector, what size of developer they mainly deal with, that kind of thing.

Invariably, the answer is a mix of all of the above, though the majority of the independent merchants we talk to do more with smaller, more local developers than they do with the larger, national names.

So, the news that the Government is today proposing a number of initiatives to free-up planning and land availability to speed up developments for small to medium sized developers is, on the face of it A Good Thing.

Sites between ten to 49 homes will be designated as Medium, and face simpler rules and fewer costs – possibly exempting them from the Building Safety Levy and simplified Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) rules.

Small to medium sized developers could get more land and financing options, with Homes England releasing more of its land exclusively to SMEs, and a new National Housing Delivery Fund to support long-term finance options.

Minor developments of up to nine homes will benefit from streamlined planning and eased (BNG) requirements, with faster decisions being taken by expert planning officers, not planning committees. Anyone who has sat in on a Council planning meeting knows how long decisions can take when every line in an application is scrutinised by half a dozen people.

Under the Government’s plans, once a development has been agreed in principle technical details won’t get bogged down by constantly going back and forth to committees, which will, it is hoped, speed up housebuilding and, equally important, save council planning departments time and money.

The government claims the overall shake-up will help drive housebuilding to its highest levels in 40 years, adding up to £6.8bn to the economy by 2030.

The proposals recognise that the current system is far too difficult for smaller builders to get spades in the ground, with sites of 10 homes having to jump through the same planning hurdles as those with 100 or more.

Proportionality is key to all this. It makes little sense that Smith & Sons, employing their local workforce, spending their money with their local merchants, who are building around eight or nine homes a time, should have to expend the same time, effort and money, meeting exactly the same requirements as Building Developments R Us, putting up 200 homes on the old industrial estate down the road.

The devil, as usual, will be in the detail, and it will be important not to throw out existing benefits. A Good Thing is the need for developments to take into account the environment they are situated in. Every big rain storm shows us the effects of overdevelopment of housing and underdevelopment of corresponding drainage infrastructure, farmers still need land to till if we are to feed ourselves, wildlife still needs somewhere to nest and feed.

It sounds like it could be good news for developers, and the merchants serving them. The newts might be a bit pissed off though.