‘There’s a lot of gearing up to do’ | Q&A with Harvey Emms of Lichfields

The government has been clear that its plans for growth include the delivery of 1.5m homes, and changes to the NPPF and the promise to speed up planning applications is an indicator of how it plans to do it. But what does it mean in practical terms for the property industry? Place North East spoke to Harvey Emms, senior director and head of the Newcastle office at planning consultancy Lichfields, to get his take on it.

How do you expect the NPPF and the government’s planning reforms to affect the construction industry, across all sectors, such as industrial, offices, town centres?

I look at it from two angles: the development industry, which you can slot into those sectors, and then the local authority/public sector, and what they’ve got to do to respond – because the critical issue in the latest legislation that’s come out, and the discussions that are coming out almost on a daily basis, is there’s a lot more clarity in the guidance.

I think most developers and authorities have been waiting for this guidance. It’s much more promotional in terms of “we need to get on and build more houses, we need more economic growth and development”, so I think the key message is it sets a more focused, positive reaction for the private sector commercial developers, to be able to take that forward and know the government’s behind us. And for the public sector perspective as well, it may provide some clarity in terms of what the expectations are in terms of location, of growth, which has been missing for a few years.

For example, if want to drill down into something like housing numbers, it’s been left to local authorities to decide what the housing need has been, and a lot of them have been sat in limbo for a few years, not updating their plans to make them relevant. Well, everything is much clearer now and they’re going to have to accelerate their delivery over the next few years, and make up-to-date plans that cover their patch.

Sunderland is undergoing huge changes in terms of both housing and infrastructure. Credit: Creo Comms

Things are definitely more specific now. How do you see that impacting the North East? 

Each local authority now has housing numbers, with a total number and an annual delivery. In terms of the North East, those numbers are probably, in some locations, up to double what they had to historically do. So, there’s a real issue in terms of acceleration in housing delivery.

Historically Newcastle, Sunderland, and Durham figures have been good. I think recently the market slowed down in terms of delivery and decision making, so their numbers may have dropped in the last year. The annual figures will be published in March and then there will be a new baseline, showing how each council has performed, where they’re at, and how they will deliver [the new targets].The commercial sector is gearing up now, in anticipation of getting the planning process in place to help deliver those homes.

There is a lot clearer, more specific guidance and it provides clarity for the commercial sector as well as the local authority. So, the deliveries alongside the enablers.

Do you see any negative issues with the new reforms? 


At the moment, I think the administration is finding that it’s having to stop on a number of committed schemes and projects because they haven’t got the money. We also know you can have the resources in place to deliver local plans but sometimes the authorities don’t have the people to do it. Likewise, we can decide to build thousands of houses and there isn’t the skill to build, the construction people able to do that, even if there was planning in place.

So there’s a lot of gearing up to do. I think the critical issue is this a gearing up process across the board, in order to deliver the new aspirations set out in government policy.

A key issue is we still haven’t got certainties on what’s happening about some of the infrastructure and the funding that’s coming through. There are big discussions about the new railway line that will connect into the metro system. That’s a big project, about £0.5bn, so it’s a little bit expensive. It’s a great bit of infrastructure that ties in with the growth development agenda, it’s a longstanding legacy project. And you have the infrastructure around maintenance of the Tyne Bridge… you can’t leave a contract, it has a timeline – but the government is saying, ‘we don’t know whether we’ll give you the final £6m or not’, so there’s no clarity on that, which then has consequences on a lot of things.

So, there’s an issue in terms of funding investment, which will probably all come out in June after the spending review is announced.

JATCO’s £49m facility will produce electric vehicle powertrains for Nissan’s nearby plant. Credit: via Creo Comms

And what does it mean for the North East’s future plans? 

In terms of big projects in the North East, we have Teesport, Humberside Airport, Nissan, the IAMP. The first gigafactory that does batteries for cars – it’s nearly finished, and we have planning permission for another one next door, so that will provide most of the electric vehicles battery requirements in England, just from Sunderland. These are all great for growth, development, work.

Sunderland is a local authority that’s pushing really hard for increased housing development, and you’ve got all the stuff going on around Newcastle, so there’s big, significant plans in the region.

When you work up to Northumberland, the attention is on energy. Wind, onshore, offshore, data storage, BESS – there’s lots of demand for data storage across the whole of the country and so we need to look at how we will get this this essential infrastructure for the next generation in place now.

It’s great that they’re saying we can build more houses, but we need the councils to embrace the new agenda rather than effectively acting as a conduit for NIMBYs. Then with infrastructure, the big underlying theme becomes how do we get the sustainability thing through?

It’s a positive message, but it’s not happening next week. The time scale for delivering it is not quick. The overriding thing is economic development, job growth, train people to have skills, and houses.