In YOUR back yard, minister?

House-building row looms for Cabinet

MORE than half of the Cabinet could see a major rise in the number of houses built in their back yards under a controversial planning algorithm, a Daily Mail investigation has revealed.

Ministers have introduced a formula for deciding how many homes are needed in each local authority in a bid to meet a national target of 300,000 new homes a year.

Boris Johnson is under pressure from some Tory MPs to ditch the system following concerns that greenfield sites will be built on simply because the algorithm claims more homes are needed.

Now the Mail can reveal that 15 Cabinet ministers are facing huge increases in the number of new houses needed in their local area.

For example Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s local district in elmbridge, Surrey, planned to build 225 new homes a year but the algorithm states that 774 are needed. The three districts in home Secretary Priti Patel’s Witham constituency see increases, including Braintree (273 to 776) and Colchester (864 to 1,612).

The London borough of hillingdon, containing Mr Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, sees its allocation almost quadruple from 559 to 2,026. housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg and Stephen Barclay, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are also badly affected.

The algorithm, in the housing white paper, considers projected local population growth and the affordability of homes in an area.

For the first time, it will be compulsory for all local authorities to use the same methodology to decide how many homes are needed to meet the national target of 300,000 new homes a year.

And the algorithm is fuelling a Nimby storm in the Tory party.

The term Nimby, meaning ‘not in my back yard’, was used in the 1980s by Tory MP Nicholas Ridley to describe opponents of local developments.

Planning consultancy Lichfields translated the algorithm into what it would mean for each authority. The Mail compared this to the authorities’ existing plans, although not all areas had one. Local authorities do not directly match on to constituencies.

Writing on the Conservativehome website, MP Neil O’Brien said outside London, ‘the formula takes the numbers down in Labour-run urban areas, while taking them dramatically up in shire and suburban areas which tend to be Conservative controlled’.

Last night the Government said the algorithm was open to consultation – indicating it could change in response to Tory anger.

A source said an area’s required number of homes ‘will only be the starting point’ in the process. ‘Local authorities will still need to consider the constraints they face locally to assess how many homes can be delivered,’ he added.