Autumn statement 2014

This article presents some of the construction industry ‘highlights’ of the 2014 Autumn Statement to Parliament given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on 3 December 2014.

[edit] Investment

• £2.3bn of capital investment in over 1,400 flood defence projects.
• £15 billion investment in the road network.
• £141m to support the London Legacy Development Corporation and Mayor of London’s plans to build a new higher education and cultural quarter at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
• Proposals to directly commission new housing and extend the affordable housing programme.
• £55 million to support the extension of the London Overground to Barking Riverside.
• £100 million to fund infrastructure and land remediation to kick start a new garden city at Ebbsfleet.
• Approval for the Grahame Park, Blackwall Reach, Aylesbury Estate and New Union Wharf regeneration projects.
• Proposals to release land with the capacity for up to 150,000 homes between 2015 and 2020.
• Support for Bicester to provide up to 13,000 new homes.
• Plans to take forward the development of Northstowe.
• Invest in the ‘northern powerhouse’.

[edit] Taxation

• Changes to the regime for Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT).
• Improvements to the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) to reduce the administrative burden on construction businesses.

[edit] Housing

• Extending affordable housing capital investment to 2018-19 and 2019-20.
• Consulting on options to streamline the process for selling on shared ownership properties, and extending shared ownership.

[edit] Planning

• Ensuring the principle of development need only be established once.
• Taking steps to speed up section 106 negotiations, including revised guidance, consulting on a faster process for reaching agreement, considering how timescales for agreement could be introduced, and improving transparency.
• Keeping the speed of decisions on major applications under review, with the minimum performance threshold increasing to 50% of major decisions on time.
• Publishing new data on local authorities’ performance in meeting their statutory duty to process smaller planning applications within 8 weeks.
• Working with industry and local authorities to test whether more can be done to support the approval of small sites.
• Publishing proposals for making the Compulsory Purchase Regime clearer, faster and fairer, with the aim of bringing forward more brownfield land for development.

[edit] Energy

• Allocating £25 million of funding in 2015-16 for firsttime heating systems in off-gas-grid homes in England.
• Increasing funding by £100 million over 2014-15 and 2015-16 to support households installing energy efficiency improvements.
• Excluding all companies substantially benefiting from other government support for the generation of renewable energy from also benefiting from tax-advantaged venture capital schemes, with the exception of community energy generation undertaken by qualifying organisations.

[edit] Local

• Extending the Enterprise Zone in Nottingham to a site in Derby, and considering the case for further extensions to existing Enterprise Zones.
• Discussing plans for a Growth Zone in Croydon.
• Working on a simplification programme for the local licensing regime for small business, with an expectation that, by 2018, every local authority will offer a single online application process where businesses only need register their details once.