Under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently in parliament, an “infrastructure levy” will be imposed on developers to fund local amenities and affordable housing. This will be set at a fixed percentage of the final development value to avoid developers negotiating payments downwards, with ministers arguing it will raise more money and provide new homes.
More than two dozen organisations, including BusinessLDN, have written to Gove and Rishi Sunak to urge them to drop the plans.
The organisations warn that the reform will cause up to a decade of disruption for overstretched councils for a “significantly more complex” system that does not solve many existing problems and removes current requirements for developers to provide a certain number of affordable homes on new sites.