Minister’s call to build 300,000 new homes a year
BRITAIN will borrow billions to construct hundreds of thousands of homes in the biggest housebuilding programme since Harold Macmillan under plans being considered by ministers.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday said the Government could take advantage of record low interest rates as he called for a target of 300,000 extra homes each year – double the 154,000 started last year.
As part of the plan, ministers are looking at using taxpayers’ money to directly commission housebuilders to start work on new developments.
Mr Javid said the Government needed to be ‘bold’ with ambitions on a ‘similar scale’ to Macmillan, who built 300,000 a year in the 1950s as housing minister in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet.
Despite promises that ministers will not relax protections for the green belt, his announcement will raise fears about how areas could be forced to build vast numbers of new homes.
Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Javid suggested a housebuilding programme will feature in next
‘There is lots of brownfield land’
month’s Budget. He said: ‘We are looking at new investments and there will be announcements. I’m sure the Budget will be covering housing, but what I want to do is make sure that we’re using everything we have available to deal with this housing crisis. And where that means, for example, that we can sensibly borrow more to invest in the infrastructure that leads to more housing, take advantage of some of the record low interest rates that we have, I think we should absolutely be considering that.’
Mr Javid claimed the Government would not seek to water down protections for the green belt. ‘There is lots of brownfield land, and brownfield first has been a policy of ours for a while,’ he said.
At the Conservative Party conference, Theresa May pledged to ‘dedicate’ her premiership to fixing Britain’s housing crisis as she announced an extra £2billion for affordable housing.
Labour’s shadow housing minister John Healey last night voiced scepticism about Mr Javid’s housebuilding plans. He said: ‘If hot air built homes, Ministers would have fixed our housing crisis.’