Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill gives Councils power over private property

Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill gives Councils power over private property

10:43 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago 12

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Government released details of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill discloses powers that will be given locally to councils to take control over empty properties, second properties and high streets. This kind of power would seem a slippery slope and includes:

  • New powers for local leaders to run High Street Rental Auctions, where they can auction off tenancies in shops that have been vacant for over a year. This is to decrease the number of empty shops in high streets.
  • Councils will also be able to double council tax on empty and second homes, ensuring everyone pays their fair share towards local services and boost levelling up.
  • Legislation to make it easier for councils to regenerate their town centres through Compulsory Purchase Orders, making the process quicker and easier to use.
  • A new, locally set infrastructure levy, charged on the final value of property when its sold, will replace much of the broken S106 payments system. This will see the big developers contribute far more of the money they make from development towards building better local roads, rail, schools, hospitals, and more affordable housing.
  • The ‘al-fresco dining revolution’ will be made permanent, injecting new life into the high street through creating a sustainable process for communities, business and local authorities, making it permanently cheaper and quicker to get a licence for outdoor dining.

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove MP said: “As a country, we need to be firing on all cylinders. That is why we must level up the UK; spread prosperity and opportunity, and make sure everyone can share in our nation’s success.

“This Bill puts in place the reforms we need to level up. It enshrines our levelling up missions in law, which will shift resources and focus throughout this decade to the parts and people of the country who need it most. It enables every part of England which wants a London-style mayor to have one. It empowers local people, not the big developers, to take back control of regeneration in their community.

“It shifts power out of Whitehall by giving local leaders the powers they need to tackle the blight of empty shops on high streets and to regenerate their communities. This is underpinned by a firm belief that by far the best-placed people to level up communities are the people who live there.

“We want everyone to be given the opportunity to stay local but go far.”

Right homes in the right places

The Bill will also deliver new reforms to the planning system, ensuring new development is more beautiful, produces more local Infrastructure, is shaped by local people’s democratic wishes, improves environmental outcomes, and occurs with neighbourhoods very much in mind.

Measures include:

  • Local plans – the way in which councils set the vision for future development in their area and decide whether to give planning permission – will gain stronger legal weight and be made simpler to produce. Communities will have a major say in these plans giving them more opportunity to shape what happens in their areas. Currently 61% of councils do not have an up to date local plan, which leaves communities exposed to development on which they haven’t had a meaningful say.
  • A digitised planning system making plans and planning applications fully available on your smartphone.
  • Stronger protections for the environment in local plans, empowering councils to make better use of brownfield land and protect precious greenbelt land.
  • Local design codes will be made mandatory so that developers have to respect styles drawn up and favoured locally – from the layout or materials used, to how it provides green space.

The government has today also outlined a new deal for millions of renters in private and social housing.

By ending Section 21 evictions and extending the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector, all renters can expect a decent, safe, and secure home. At the same time, these measures deliver a fairer system for good landlords who can struggle to recover their properties when faced with anti-social behaviour or wilful non-payment of rent.

Details on further support for tenants in social housing will be unveiled later this year which will include a review of the Decent Homes Standard, new consumer regulation and regular inspections of the largest landlords.

 


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Comments

Judith Wordsworth

10:58 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

I personally cannot see the rationale for double council tax on empty property as local services are not being used, nor on second homes as local services are only being used spasmodically.
Nothing to do with levelling up, which is a stupid phrase in the first place.

Julius Caesar

11:00 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

Has anyone found the part describing delivering “…a fairer system for good landlords who can struggle to recover their properties when faced with anti-social behaviour or wilful non-payment of rent”?

Rosanne Turvey

11:21 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 12/05/2022 - 10:58
Believe you me, this 2 year Empty Property Premium is up and running. We bought a property in Sept 2020 which needed completed renovation. We had to apply for Planning Permission which we did in December 2020. We were unable to start work until we had planning permission. Unfortunately the local council took 9 MONTHS! to grant that permission and so we couldn't do anything until September 21. It has been a major renovation which we have carried out ourselves with the intention of letting it out at the end. I have just received a new council tax bill charging me for the empty property premium. When I queried it and said that it was their fault we hadn't completed it their answer was 'too bad'. I also queried that we hadn't owned the property for two years but apparently it's on the property and not the person owning it, so because it was empty when we bought it we still have to pay it.

moneymanager

11:22 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

"Levelling up" means the nationalisation of private assets, something well understood by the Bolsheviks, a pity that they killed 40,000,000 Russians and then another 4 million Ukrainians were starved to death when the collectivised the farms of independent kulaks, aren't we having a grain shortage?

moneymanager

11:24 AM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

How many "auctionned" properties will end up being converted to human warehouses whose costs will be wholly borne by the decreasing pool of taxpaters?

Ros poldermans

15:54 PM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Rosanne Turvey at 12/05/2022 - 11:21
Exactly what happened to me (Dover Council )

Reluctant Landlord

17:00 PM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

hahahaha

'New powers for local leaders to run High Street Rental Auctions, where they can auction off tenancies in shops that have been vacant for over a year. This is to decrease the number of empty shops in high streets.'.

1. No it wont. No one wants a commercial let in areas where there is no trade/High St has become decimated as it is - the business rates put people off even if the rent is free! New start ups are going to have a hard sell if they set up in a space empty for over a year anyway so who exactly are the empty spaces supposed to appeal to?
2. Local councils planners are refusing to allow for shop conversions into residential (despite the need in most if not all areas for additional accommodation). Council cutting their nose off to spite their face as they could be getting more in the way of Council tax if they did.
3. The government can go to hell telling me who and how I have to rent my property to. Without my permission they can't auction anything off. Who is going to sign a contract with this new tenant that's won the auction bid??? - the Council/ the government?

If there was a business interested in letting a commercial unit of mine they would have already approached me. You cant make people rent something if they don't want to.
On the other hand the government are making it impossible for residential tenants (the good ones) move even if they want to as there is no supply.

Could this situation be any more F'd up???

Old Mrs Landlord

17:26 PM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 12/05/2022 - 17:00
In the case of your item 3, the council would simply compulsorily purchase the property so they would get their way regardless. We are the little people and our rights are increasingly ridden over roughshod.

TheBiggerPicture

17:59 PM, 12th May 2022, About 2 years ago

This may still be called the Tory party, but is a world removed from Thatcher's Tory party.

Seems vote chasing is more important than justice and property rights.

The erosion of property rights for percived political gain never ends well.

Reluctant Landlord

10:19 AM, 13th May 2022, About 2 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 12/05/2022 - 17:26
if that were the case then then they would have to 1. Change/amend the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 to accommodate for this type of CPO
2. compensate me as the owner
3. then be left with a bunch of UC tenants to deal with who live above the commercial unit.

Maybe I could be in favour after all....LOL!

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