On 25th November, Nicholas Woolley, a member of the TCPA, attended the TCPA Annual Conference in London.
The Annual Conference is for planners, business and infrastructure providers, government officials, local authority officers and members, developers, architects and housing professionals, economists, consultants, academics, and those from NGOs and voluntary organisations – anyone interested in delivering high-quality, sustainable new communities. The Government’s Chief Planner, Steven Quartermain spoke on behalf of the Minister.
As we approach the 2015 General Election, housing and planning for housing are high on the political agenda. The need to build more than 200,000 new homes a year to house our ever growing population is now widely realised. This conference focused on identifying the practical obstacles that must be overcome to ensure the goal is reached and what the public and private sectors need to do to ensure that enough new housing is built and in the right places. It also focused on how we can ensure that the urgent need to build millions of new homes does not lead us forget the vital importance of making sure they are sustainable and of a high quality.
Nick Woolley told the conference that the need for more sustainable homes had never been more necessary and that the major house-builders had to conform to this. Their pleas that to build to high efficiency standards added too much to building costs were a nonsense. Nick cited firm evidence of this and asked the Chief Planner to do all he could to enforce proper, high standards.
Active debates were also held on ‘how can we build 200,000 good homes by the year 2020” and ‘what should be the priorities for planning post 2015?’ with engaging question and answer sessions.
25th November 2014