Three growth-friendly reforms for the UK’s broken planning system
The writer is professor of economics at Oxford university
After the spectacular demise of Trussonomics, fresh thinking about how to resolve the UK’s fiscal crisis has become a priority. The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, urgently needs market-credible solutions that enhance long-term growth. An important element in a sensible package is to enable far better land value capture. This entails sharing more fairly the increase in value that results from development permission between society — the taxpayer — and private landowners. It would be a significant source of new funding, and reduce the constraints on growth that come from landowners and from the high prices of land with development permission.
We need three things. First, a planning system that would, on change of use, direct that the uplift in land value be split between the national or local planning authorities — to help meet infrastructure or housing needs — and the current landowner, whose portion would be fair reward for selling the land. The Oxford Civic Society supports land value capture with a 50:50 split.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:John Muellbauer
