"Amid these tricky times, under-resourced local authority planning departments must be supported to inject confidence among developers, which will help to simplify the planning process"
- Richard Nowell - Secure Trust Bank
Within recent years, challenges like long waiting times for planning documents to be reviewed by local authorities, contractor insolvencies, and inflation have caused uncertainty among developers and future projects.
STB would firstly like to see the planning application timeframe for new developments reduced. The organisation believes that this would put an end to the rising number of developers dissuaded from doing business in the UK due to the current drawn-out and costly process that in several instances has taken over a year to reach completion.
As complexity grows around planning applications, STB also hopes to see an increased headcount at local authorities’ planning departments. With many overwhelmed and facing a backlog in their planning departments, local authorities are struggling to turnaround any form of planning process requirement within agreed timeframes, causing developments and schemes to stall.
Richard Nowell, Senior Relationship Director at Secure Trust Bank, said: “Bringing confidence back to developers poses a real challenge, given the plethora of obstacles those in the real estate development market are having to overcome in order to get their projects over the line.
“Faced with so many agenda items to address and when so few get resolved, it begs the question, where to begin? Amid these tricky times, under-resourced local authority planning departments must be supported to inject confidence among developers, which will help to simplify the planning process.”
Without an immediate solution to the uncertainty surrounding the real estate development market, developers have been encouraged to closely collaborate with lenders to ensure that projects that receive the go-ahead have the best possible chance of success. Developers who inform lenders of difficulties they foresee will also help to avoid risk and save any additional stress.
Richard added: “STB has a strong record of working with developers when unforeseen circumstances arise, such as weather impeding construction progress, building regulation changes and inflation altering the financial situation for developers. We are on hand to provide the necessary guidance and risk assessment for developers amid these uncertain times.”
