Environmental rules reviewed for small housebuilders

Environmental rules that forces developers in England to improve wildlife houses can be reduced under government schemes to make it easier to build houses at small sites.

The government is reviewing the biodiversity net gains (BNG) requirements, under which builders should compensate for the loss of any nature on housing development.

Ministers say they are considering how the cost can be reduced for small householders, while also providing housing for wildlife.

Proposals are part of a package of housing reforms to be set by the Labor Government on Wednesday.

The conservatives said that they were insisting on the government to further support small businesses.

Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rener wants to simplify the planning system to speed up house-beding at small sites.

There is a plan to provide trained planning officers instead of reducing BNG requirements and approved councilors for minor development of nine houses.

Ministers have also suggested exemption to sites between 10 and 49 houses from one tax to remove unsafe cladding.

The government said that small firms had seen their market share shrinking since the 1980s, when small and medium -sized builders had distributed 40% of the country’s houses, and changes would “level the playground”.

Talking to broadcasters on Wednesday, Rener said that change would “simple” and deny that she was compromising on environmental safety, saying: “This is practicality”.

Chhaya Secretary for the local government, Kevin Hallinrak said, “Labor” was separating the right to vote on local planning applications, concerting on the green belt and first withdrawing support for buyers “.

He said that Rener would “say less on high taxes and development in your community”.

Ministers hope that these policy changes will help them reach the government’s declared objective of building 1.5 meters of new houses in England by 2030.

Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) data It was suggested in March that the housebuilding would be reduced by a target of 1.5 million, even with already planned reforms earlier this year.

The government argued that the OBR forecasts did not move further reforms will help in reaching this number.

Last year, a record was seen to be low for housing projects, which was allowed in England, with only more than 30,000 projects.

The difficulty of killing the house-building target has brought BNG’s influence into a sharp focus.

BNG 2021 became an essential part of the plan system in England in February as part of the Environment Act.

This means that sites are to be evaluated and housing developers must be committed to 10% net improvement in biodiversity that lasts over a period of 30 years.

Last month, the Home Builders Federation stated that BNG had “an uneven burden on small and medium -sized houses builders”.

Neil Jefferson, CEO of the Home Builders Federation, said, “Home-beding industry has embraced BNG and is committed to increasing both housing supply and protecting and increasing our natural environment.”

“However, if we are to increase the supply with these new requirements, it is important to address emerging obstacles for implementation, such as insufficient rehabilitation of local authorities, deficiency of ecological and insufficient national guidance.”

But wildlife and links to rural areas, a coalition of conservation groups, urged the government not to “return the clock during the days of damage to development”.

Richard Benvel, Chief Executive of Links of Wildlife and Rural areas, said: “Giving short sites would mean that there is no need to compensate for about three -fourth events to compensate for the loss of nature – let it increase it alone.

“These changes can leave the biodiversity net profit system dead in water and with it, the main guarantee of the government’s nature-positive plan.”

The government is starting a consultation reviewing BNG and with this, investing £ 100 meters in loans to help small home-building firms.