Urban & Civic warns of planning gridlock

Urban & Civic said it expected to see reduced numbers of planning consents given to proposed housing schemes as local authorities grapple with how to hold planning committee meeting under lockdown.

Citing the physical challenges of putting together planning meetings when committee members are supposed to be keeping 2m apart, Urban & Civic (U&C) said the number of applications approved would see a “substantial” fall over the next few months, before picking up again at the mid-year point.

In a stock exchange statement, the developer also said housebuilders had downed tools across virtually all of its strategic residential building sites. It said only a small minority of housebuilding customers were still able to build “due to the logistical and supply chain challenges arising from social distancing”.

Last year the firm was working on nine schemes, with delivery targets of up to 33,500 homes.

But U&C said its civil infrastructure work, including land remediation and new roads and schools, was continuing, thanks to the greater involvement of heavy machinery and working environments giving staff enough space to operate.

The group also said it had sealed two new loans totalling nearly £97m last week. It received £61m from Homes England for enabling infrastructure at the firm’s 6,500-home scheme at Waterbeach (pictured), near Cambridge, which received a resolution to grant planning last year. It also secured £35m from the Department of Education to fund a new secondary school at Houlton in Rugby borough.

The lockdown is affecting housebuilders further afield, with Irish Sea housebuilder Cairn Homes announcing it was ceasing work on its residential sites for two weeks until 12 April, in line with the Dublin government’s recently-announced lockdown.

Over the weekend contractors were advised to shut down sites after the country was put into lockdown by its Taoiseach last Friday night to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Last week Cairn Homes said it was scrapping a final 2019 dividend of 2.75c (£0.25) per share and was suspending its share buyback scheme, with €16m-worth (£14m) of stock still be acquired of a planned €60m (£54m) programme.

To date Ireland has reported 2,615 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 46 deaths.