We all know that Britain is not building the number of houses or the amount of infrastructure needed to support growth. We all live with the effects of that failure, putting up with an economy that doesn\u2019t generate enough wealth and opportunities for its people.<\/p>\n
This is all the more frustrating because there are billions of pounds of capital that British investors would love to put to work, building the economy and infrastructure we all need. All too often we encounter delays and obstacles that stand in the way of the housing, roads and reservoirs that the country requires.<\/p>\n
This is because planning rules and overlapping regulations make it too hard to build vital infrastructure \u2014 and too easy to block that building. The planning system is already tilted in favour of Nimbyism and there are signs that artificial intelligence could make it even easier for activist campaign groups.<\/p>\n
We need change, before things get even worse. That means altering planning rules<\/a> to impose a financial charge on people who object to developments far from where they live, or who submit an excessive number of objections. That is one of 28 proposals being made today by Pension Insurance Corporation (Pic) in a report that shows how to get Britain building again.<\/p>\n At Pic we are in the midst of these issues every day. We are a \u00a350 billion pension-risk transfer insurer, seeking the long-term, stable UK investments that allow us to pay the pensions of more than 400,000 British policyholders.<\/p>\n So far we have invested more than \u00a314 billion in UK housing and infrastructure and we\u2019ll do a lot more in the years ahead as more defined-benefit pension members see their schemes transferred by their trustees to insurers. This transfer, known as \u201cbuy out\u201d, means their pensions are secured by highly regulated insurance firms and supported by long-term investments in Britain.<\/p>\n Our industry should invest hundreds of billions of pounds in UK housing and infrastructure over the next decade. This is an opportunity to address decades of under-investment and start to turn things around this year and for decades to come.<\/p>\n But standing in the way of those investments is a planning system that makes it too easy for people and campaign groups to block developments, even when those objectors have no real connection to the places concerned.<\/p>\n That is not just unfair on the wider economy, it is unfair on the communities concerned. Pic, like many major investors, is dedicated to delivering the greatest possible social value from our investments. We know that good developments, in partnership with local communities and institutions, support stronger communities, health and education.<\/p>\n Too often, though, the objections that can lead to the collapse of huge and vital projects<\/a> come from only a handful of people, some of them living far away.<\/p>\n Our paper today shows how: Part of the answer is to require a fee for objections from people who live more than a set distance<\/a> \u2014 perhaps ten miles \u2014 from the site of a proposed development.<\/p>\n The benefits of development to local communities should be made even greater too. Our report shows how the best way to achieve this is by giving developers the ability to offer financial and other incentives to win community consent, using local ballots to ensure full transparency.<\/p>\n \u2022 Martin Clunes fails to block traveller site near his home<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2022 in 2023, 85 per cent of noise complaints about Heathrow were made by only ten people;
\u2022 one campaign group opposing what it terms \u201cdamaging roads\u201d is reported to have cost the UK taxpayer \u00a3200 to \u00a3300 million by objecting to new projects, and
\u2022 most troublingly, a new service called Objector offers to provide \u201cpolicy-backed objections in minutes\u201d, suggesting that AI could turbocharge Nimby objections.<\/p>\n