Will Bradford match up to new planning rules?

But while the tightening of planning rules will be welcome in all sorts of ways, its impact on Bradford remains to be seen.

In her speech this week, Mrs May urged developers to “restore the dream of home ownership” and insisted she could not “bring about the kind of society I want to see, unless we tackle one of the biggest barriers to social mobility we face today: the national housing crisis.”

The prime minister said the rewriting of planning rules to get more homes built was needed because a lack of supply had meant that “in much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do so”.

The new rules could allow councils to take a developer’s previous building rate into account when deciding to grant future planning permissions.

“I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise,” she said.

The root cause of the crisis was that the country had failed to build enough of the right homes in the right places and the failure to match demand had pushed prices upwards leading to higher rents, so prospective first-time buyers had found themselves able to save less and less even as the size of the deposit they needed grew and grew.

Even if the new measures are effective, though, fulfilling the dream of creating more affordable housing will depend on your definition of “affordable.”

Bradford’s new economic growth strategy, launched this week, rightly highlights the opportunity provided by the fact the city has the highest number of young people per head of any UK city, with more than a quarter of the population aged under 18.

But the statistics that underpin it also show that, behind the city’s population increase (which has slowed in recent years) there is also a worrying trend: a growing number of young people – especially in the ages 18 to 20, under 18, and 26 to 34 categories – are leaving the district. Why? Because of a shortage of affordable homes as well as a lack of jobs to support paying for them.

And that is happening despite big falls in the price of housing, especially in the centre of Bradford.

The district also has a skills gap at both the top and bottom of the labour market, with a high proportion of mid-skilled residents which, say analysts, could put the district at economic and social risk because these jobs are most likely to be affected by structural and technological changes which could cut jobs.

So, as well as building some big homes on the edge of countryside to attract professionals, the city needs to bring in more low-skilled workers and that means it needs more “affordable” housing in the heart of the city.

Pinning down what “affordable” actually means is a difficult task. The Government’s definition for rented homes suggests that affordable ones should cost no more than 80 per cent of the average local market rent. But for home ownership, the definition is much broader: it says it must be provided at a level at which the mortgage payments on the property should be more than would be paid in rent on council housing, but below market levels.

Housing charity Shelter says affordable housing should cost no more than 35 per cent of household income after tax and benefits but, it says, that level will be more difficult for people on very low incomes to pay than for those who earn more.

How affordable home ownership is depends heavily on where you live. The Office for National Statistics uses the ratio between average annual salaries and house prices to explain affordability.

For instance, Westminster was the least affordable place to buy a house in 2015, with prices 23 times greater than the average annual salary. Burnley was the most affordable, with prices at less than four times the average salary.

Shelter says we need to build a “full mix” of homes: “So that everyone can find a home that is affordable for them (in terms of their income), we need market homes for people to buy and rent, so people who should be able to buy don’t find house prices continuously running away from them; social rented homes, so that people on low incomes are able to pay the rent without struggling; and homes like shared ownership and intermediate rent for the people in the middle, who don’t need the full support of social rented housing but can’t afford a market home.”

Whether the new planning rules will help Bradford Council achieve such ambitions is up in the air, but with only 3,500 new homes currently allocated for the city centre in the Local Plan Core Strategy – and another 38,000 on the outskirts and in the Aire and Worth Valleys (about 11,000 on green belt land) – it could mean a re-think.

Mrs May said: “Where cities surrounded by green belts still need more homes, we can increase housing density, make better use of brownfield sites, build upwards rather than outwards.

“Our new planning rules make it easier to do this, allowing for minimum densities around transport hubs and city centres so that more homes can be built in areas with the highest demand.

“We’re strengthening existing protections so that authorities can only amend Green Belt boundaries if they can prove they have fully explored every other reasonable option for building the homes their community needs.”