1.85 million new homes planned over 5 years

The Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner informed MPs that the Government planned overseeing the building of 370,000 homes every year. That’s an increase of 70,000 from the original figure Labour had pledged during the recent General Election.

The new Labour Government has increased its housing target for new homes to 1.85 million within five years, just a few weeks after winning power.

The original target promised by Labour was to build 1.5 million homes over five years, or 300,000 per year.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner repeated the pledge to restore mandatory local housing targets and reform the planning system. “We have a housing crisis, and "We all must play our part,” she said.

The Housing Secretary warned that some areas might have “surprising targets”. She further denied reports that the target for London was being watered down, and would be around 80,000 per year.

In what she called an “unforgiveable” outcome, the Deputy PM said the number of new homes built this year would be below 200,000.

She also added that the Tories’ decision to make local housing targets only advisory, lay behind the failure of the previous government achieving its target number of 300,000. “We inherited the most acute housing crisis in living memory,” said Rayner.

According to Kemi Badenoch, the Shadow Housing Secretary, the Government had already changed its housing targets less than four weeks after winning the election. She said the original timetable for reform of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was 100 days, and now the deadline was the end of the year.

However, Rayner disputed this and said a consultation on the NPPF was starting immediately and would last eight weeks.

Furthermore, she is setting up a new towns taskforce which has been asked to recommend sites for new towns within 12 months. This will be chaired by Sir Michael Lyons, an economist, former council chief executive and former chair of the BBC who has in-depth experience as an adviser to governments, especially on local government matters. The Deputy Chair is Dame Kate Barker, also an economist and former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, who has also led previous housing policy inquiries for previous governments.

Although it would appear that many of these developments won’t actually be new towns, but extensions to existing towns.

The Deputy PM also wants these developments to aim for a 40% affordable housing rate.

To explain the purpose of the taskforce and to explain what it will do, the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government said:

“The programme of new towns will create largescale communities of at least 10,000 new homes each, with many significantly larger. These places could deliver hundreds of thousands of much-needed affordable and high-quality homes in the decades to come, tackling the barriers to growth and helping more working people across the country own their own home.

“The new towns will help unlock the economic potential of existing towns and cities across the country, and the Government will continue to drive growth and regenerate areas that have been held back by constraints on their expansion for far too long. While the programme will include large-scale new communities that are separate from existing settlements, a far larger number of new towns will be urban extensions and regeneration schemes that will work with the grain of development in any given area.

“These new communities will be governed by a ‘new towns code’ – a set of rules that developers will have to meet to make sure new towns are well-connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live. They will have all the infrastructure and public services necessary to support thriving communities. The towns will also help meet housing needs by targeting rates of 40% affordable housing with a focus on genuinely affordable social rented homes.”

The CEO of Propertymark – Nathan Emerson, said: “Ensuring sustainable homes are delivered in key areas is paramount for the economy and it’s encouraging to hear Angela Rayners commit to an in ‘infrastructure first’ approach, and one that focuses on making full use of available brownfield and grey belt land where possible first.

“Propertymark has long called for an enhanced housing strategy to be developed and one that can deliver for generations to come, so it’s positive to hear this will become an integrated ambition moving forwards. It is essential housing supply has seamless continuity and keeps pace with demand, so the return of mandatory housing targets and a commitment to building a mixture of housing becomes a reality.”