UKIPS Presumption Against Sustainable Development

Of all of this elections mammoth manifestos UKIP’s is at once the best designed and written and the most ludicrous and impractical.

Introducing a ‘presumption in favour of conservation’ as opposed to the current ‘presumption in favour of development’ in planning legislation.

The term ‘sustainable development’ doesnt appear once, presumably they have a tea party like dislike of the term?   So the UKIP presumption would lead to refusal development that is not conservation even when it is sustainable.

It is unclear if the manifesto would ban all loss of countryside, loss of ‘prime’ (current national policy anyway) or only ‘excessive’ development in the countryside.

They would let every LPA set its own targets which we know from recent experience leads to an undershoot of around 150,000 completions a year.

They say they would build 1 million brownfield by 2025, 300,000 – 150,000 = 1.5 million so we can assume thats 1 million on brownfield and 1/2 million on greenfield leaving a supply gap of 1.5 million homes by 2025.

Aha but that assumes 250,000 a year HH growth +50,000 backlog.  UKIP would say the numbers would be reduced by reducing immigration.   UKIP dont actually set an immigation target so it is  difficult to know if the 1.5 million gap in their numbers could be reduced by less immigration.  However banning unskilled labourers is going to have a negligible impact on household formation by itself.

Around 60% of the projected population increase is due to migration (directly and indirectly) and population increase contributes to around 98% of household formation – but only because people can no longer afford to form homes so they cram into the existing stock.  Sp even if we had a zero net in migration from day one – not I stress UKIP policy – then HH formation would shrink from 250,000 to 100,000 +50,000 backlog (UKIP dont support repatriation) =150,000 a year.  So if UKIP banned all immigration from day one their numbers would add up, but they dont because they would allow skilled in migrants.  So even if they reduced immigration by 50% they would face a 750,000 gap in their numbers till 2025.