Anyone who reads the annual reports of big housebuilders will know that it is almost compulsory for developers to complain about the inadequacies of the planning system. Apparently, it prevents them from delivering more homes.
Redrow, the FTSE 250 developer, likes to complain about the protections for great crested newts. Berkeley, the London housebuilder, said recently that it could not build any faster because of the “changing planning environment”, as well as the complexity of actually getting on to a site. You get the idea.
Yet yesterday Taylor Wimpey said that the planning environment was now so good that it could start building more homes at a faster rate and could use up its short-term land bank more quickly. Best of all, the reduction in