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Angela Rayner must bring planning officers out of retirement in order to achieve a government pledge to build 1.5m homes, the estate agent Savills has said.
The Housing Secretary’s plans to bring in an additional 300 planning officers will be far short of the “thousands” needed if it wants to follow through on its manifesto pledge to build 1.5m homes over the next five years, the head of planning at Savills has said.
David Jackson said the Government should “absolutely” bring planning officers out of retirement to help plug huge gaps in staffing until new people can get the necessary expertise.
Mr Jackson said: “You’d be talking about thousands of additional planners being required. And it’s not only just bringing people into the profession, it’s actually training them.”
He added that agencies included in the planning system, such as the Environment Agency, Historic England, the Planning Inspectorate and county councils, which have input in transport planning, will also need extra staff.
The Government has promised to support local authorities with 300 extra planning officers as part of Ms Rayner’s “radical plan” to boost building.
But Simon Coop, senior director at Lichfields planning consultants, said this would work out as less than one extra planning officer per authority in England.
Mr Coop said: “What impact will it have? To be blunt, very limited or none whatsoever.
“One wonders where that number even came from. It’s really not enough to address the problem.”
There are around 320 planning authorities in England. According to figures from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), in 2019 there were 18,300 planners working in England, just over half of whom were employed by local authorities, meaning an average of 29 officers per council.
Mr Jackson warned that there is already a major shortage of planning officers and their workloads will increase dramatically as Labour pushes towards its 1.5m target.
Because not all homes that get planning consent get built, if the Government wants to build an average of 300,000 homes a year over five years, planning officers will need to sign off around 370,000 homes a year.
This would be a 59pc increase compared to the 233,000 planning consents for homes granted in 2023.
Yet Labour’s plans for 300 extra planning officers would be equivalent to just a 3pc increase in the workforce.
Mr Coop warned that it is not feasible for the Government to train up new officers in time to be able to hit the target.
He said: “Really it will be a couple of years before people can get trained up and be at the level where they can be working through planning applications quickly.”