Spitfire Homes has secured planning permission for over 350 homes across the Midlands in just one week.

Leading the plans is a 280-home scheme in Radcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, along with a further 61 properties located at a former Sandvik HQ in Halesowen, Dudley, and a collection of 30 new homes in the Worcestershire village of Crowle.

Despite the recent announcements, Ben Leather, Managing Director at Spitfire Homes, said the process of securing planning permission has been an extremely difficult and drawn-out process.

"Despite our recent planning success, as an SME housebuilder we experience significant struggles with the current planning system on a daily basis – something that is felt throughout the industry.


"Reserved Matters permission for one of these developments took almost 12 months to secure, despite being an allocated site in the Local Plan with Outline Permission already in place, and no objections from any statutory consultees. Another development on a brownfield site was challenged by unjustified design and highways requests, whilst staffing changes within the planning department further slowed the process which took over a year.

"These are just some recent examples of how the current system prevents housebuilders from delivering homes that are needed in strategic locations within acceptable timeframes."

Housing Secretary Micheal Gove recently set out new measures that he hopes will unblock the planning system and enable the building of more homes in the right places where there is local consent.

Developers will be asked to contribute more through fees, to help support a higher-quality, more efficient planning service, but Leather doesn’t think the changes go far enough to provide a deliverable mix of homes, of all tenures, to solve England’s housing crisis.