Pete Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s CEO, went on the offensive on Monday in a blog 
on the company’s website regarding Ed Miliband’s announcement during the Labour Party conference last week, that if elected, he will introduce a “use it or lose it” policy on land banks with planning approval, if house builders fail to build on them.
Redfern joined the growing list of builder CEO’s to bemoan the planning system saying: “the greatest challenge for our industry is getting sites through our slow and complex planning system, and then getting them started as quickly as possible”
He denied that house builders were sitting on land with planning permission in order to benefit from increases in land value and house prices, claiming: “if we could be criticised for anything, it is rushing the final stages too quickly to get a new site open – born out of frustration with a planning process which has often taken many months longer than expected”
Redfern was particularly critical of planning conditions, which he said: “can be as many as 100 but the average is around 25. They can vary from obtaining a ‘newt licence’ to approval for a road access layout.”
