IF you are looking desperately for somewhere to live and cannot afford what is out there then you might be interested in the Government’s Housing White Paper. This sets out the need for planning to be for the right houses in the right places, to build homes faster, to diversify the market and to help people now. It all sounds good, but what is in the detail? Will the changes actually make things better?

There is a chance to have a say as the consultation runs until 11.45pm on May 2. Google DCLG to find the Housing White Paper and if you scroll down far enough you will find a series of questions. There may be just a few that you would like to answer or comment on.

There are proposals to welcome, such as improvements to the Land Registry, a long list of all the different types of affordable housing, recognition that affordable housing is needed in rural areas, and measures to meet the problems when developers delay building. Think how encouraging it must be for those who write the White Paper to find there is public support for some of it.

There are also questions that may attract objection. Q 8 c) proposes an element of market housing being allowed on exception sites. This spells danger. Up to now, only small numbers of affordable houses have been able to be built outside the limits of development. When people have made their Neighbourhood Plans they have often stressed that they want all other development to be within the limits. If market housing is allowed outside the limits of development where will it stop?

Elsewhere in the White Paper there is mention of Neighbourhood Plans finding small sites but no longer allocating where development should go, just accepting the housing numbers and being able to comment on design. At least we can make our objections clear at this stage. We can also ask for all small sites of less than half a hectare to be for self-build and small builders only and that where two houses are built, one should be affordable. All housing should be built to the highest eco standards.

On large development sites, thresholds do not seem to work. If the plans say that sites of five houses and over should have 40 per cent affordable houses, applications for four houses come in. If for 10 houses or more, there are applications for nine houses.

Q 32b) in the White Paper asks if the policy should apply to developments over 10 units or 0.5 hectare and you can guess my answer to that one.

If, as the White Paper proposes, (Q 32a) there should be a minimum of 10 per cent affordable houses on large sites, the developers can argue that it makes the site unviable. So unless the viability clause is struck out, and there may be an opportunity (under Q 22) to ask for this, there will still be a problem over the provision of affordable housing. After all, any problems with a site should be discovered both before a strategic plan is adopted and before a planning application is made.

When building homes faster it may be necessary to say (Q 20) infrastructure requirements should include having enough doctors and schools. At Q 28) why should local authorities be subjected to a delivery test and punishments when they monitor the delivery of housing annually anyway?

Building in the right places would seem to be on brownfields first. They need to be given priority so they have to be built before green fields are taken, but the VAT system works against this. Can it be reformed?

You can be sure that the developers and their barristers will be commenting on the White Paper. It is up to us to comment too and make sure we are not left with vague terms.