South braced for surge in new homes

TOWNS and villages in some of the most desirable parts of the country will have to accept thousands more homes a year to help tackle the housing crisis, ministers said yesterday.

New targets mean that some parts of England will see their housing targets increased by up to 40 per cent. Under the plans the number of homes which have to built will increase from 250,000 a year to 266,000 annually from April 2018.

Most of the new homes will be built in the south east of England, as ministers said areas where the average home costs more than four times average salaries would be targeted. Campaigners warned that this would almost certainly mean beautiful parts of the Home Counties will have to be bulldozed.

Planning experts said the measures did nothing to force developers to build more homes more quickly, yet they would put greenfield sites more at risk. Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, urged communities not to fight the changes and to think of the needs of their children and grandchildren.

He said: “For the comfortably housed children of the Fifties, the Sixties, the Seventies, to pull that ladder up behind would be nothing less than an act of inter-generational betrayal – one that our children, our grandchildren will never forget or forgive.”

The Tories are committed to building one million homes between 2015 and 2020 and a further 500,000 between 2021 and 2022.

Mr Javid told MPS the Government has developed an “honest, open, consistent” approach to assessing housing need. He said the new measures would provide a “starting point for an honest appraisal” of how many homes an area needed, adding: “It should not be mistaken for a hard and fast target.”

He added: “The methodology that we’re publishing today shows the starting point for local plans across England should be 266,000 homes per year.” A cap would apply to those local authorities that had adopted a local plan and which was less than five years old.

He explained: “The increase will be capped at no more than 40 per cent above their local plan figure. If the plan is not up to date, the cap will be at 40 per cent above either the level in the plan or the ONS projected household growth for the area – whichever is highest.”

Mr Javid said that he hoped councils with more development land were “willing and able to take on unmet need” from neighbouring authorities.

The plans included increasing the number of homes required in less affordable areas. Mr Javid said: “In any area where the average prices are more than four times average earnings, we increase the number of homes that will be planned.”

John Healey, the shadow housing minister, said: “There were 300,000 planning permissions granted last year yet the level of new affordable house building hit a 24-year low.”

But Matt Thomson, head of planning at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “Building executive homes in expensive areas will simply not address the crisis in housing for young people and families.

“It will entrench the dominance of housebuilders and speculators over development and focus growth in the south east.”