Mind The Gap – If Starter Homes Survive, There Will Be Blood

The Starter Homes initiative now faces an uphill struggle onto the statute books following setbacks in the House of Lords. Critics should be careful not to write them off, though, because the Government is adopting a twin track approach that is likely to deliver changes this year either way which will disrupt and reshape planning debates.

Even if the radical Starter Homes Duty is unravelled successfully by the House of Lords, it seems very likely that the Government will modify the NPPF to make Starter Homes a qualifying affordable housing tenure and, potentially, attempt to give it the primacy that the Housing and Planning Bill 2015/16 was aimed at until the Lords rebelled.

Either way, the changes will undoubtedly have a radical effect on Local Plan and application processes:

Local Plan snakes and ladders. Again. More complication, more fuss and evidence base changes. Government is...