UKREiiF | What would Reform do to accelerate housebuilding?

Introducing tax breaks to help regenerate ailing town centres and cutting planning red tape would be among the poll-topping party’s focuses if it were to form a government at the next general election, according to deputy leader Richard Tice.

Promising a more fulsome policy platform by the time its party conference rolls around in September, Nigel Farage’s right-hand man gave a flavour of what a Reform UK government might do with the country’s much-criticised planning system.

Speaking at UKREiiF, Tice said developers should be given more autonomy to deliver against market need and seemed to speak in favour of a zonal approach to planning that would make for faster decisions.

Verdicts on broad matters such as whether a certain type of scheme is appropriate in a particular location should be taken democratically but, in the case of apartment schemes, details around the mix of units should be left up to the market, according to Tice.

“Trust the developer,” he said.

Describing the current system as dysfunctional, Tice, who made his millions in property after getting a degree in quantity surveying at the University of Salford, called for a fundamental overhaul of the system.

“Everybody’s whinged and moaned for the last 30 years about the cost of getting planning, the delays, the quality of planners. I think we’ve got to take a reset.

“You can’t just tinker at the edges,” he said. “I am old enough to remember when I got planning consent for literally a couple of drawings. 50 units, 10 weeks, 10 grand. Now, that would cost you a couple of hundred grand, if not 300 grand, and it would take you 10 months if you’re lucky.”

Tice also said the market should be left to decide whether or not to install certain technologies in new homes, including heat pumps, claiming that efforts to decarbonise are worsening project viability.

“If someone wants to put in a heat pump, more power to your elbow but that should be your choice. It shouldn’t be a forced government decision,” Tice said referring to the Future Homes Standard that sets out an ambition for heat pumps in most new homes.

Reviving town centres is a key pillar of what Reform will hope to achieve with its planning policies.

“There are so many dozens if not hundreds of towns in the Midlands, in the North of England, that are a shadow of where they were. So, regeneration is a massive, massive part of what we’re looking at.”

The deputy leader name-checked St Helens as once such place. Reform took control of the council from Labour at the local elections earlier this month and will have to decide where it stands on plans to regenerate the town centre, a process that is already well underway.

While a general election is likely years away, Reform, which has eight MPs and gained more than 1,400 seats at the recent local elections, is currently top of the opinion polls. To date, the party has not put forward a substantial policy platform but Tice said he recognises that levers would need to be pulled if his vision of thriving high streets is to come to pass.

“Don’t expect that post the next general election someone’s going to have a magic money tree and magic up whole load of money,” he said.

“It’s not going to happen so what you’ve got to do is create tax incentives to encourage the private sector to take some risks. I mean proper tax incentives, [like the] sort of things that you see in the US.”

While stopping short of saying he would scrap development in the Green Belt altogether, Tice said Reform’s approach to development would be heavily focused on brownfield in towns and cities.

“It’s not environmentally friendly to gobble up another 100 acres outside a town [that] looks as though a bomb’s just hit it,” he said.

Tice took to the stage at UKREiiF shortly after the party had named its candidate for the crunch by-election in Makerfield, where Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is fighting to return to parliament so he can challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.

Burnham will be up against Robert Kenyon, who came second to Labour by around 5,000 votes in 2024.

“We’re bullish,” Tice said about his party’s chances against Burnham before taking a swipe at Labour’s candidate.

“He has a track record of flip flopping,” he said, alleging Burnham has changed back on his stance on rejoining the EU and only scrapped plans for a clean air zone in Manchester “because he realized it wasn’t very popular”.

“I’ve rebranded him the King of the U-turn, as opposed to the King of the North,” Tice said.

Burnham took to the stage yesterday to set out his bid to become Makerfield’s MP.