Minister: We need 300,000 new homes each year
Positive engagement is needed
HOUSING SECRETARY Sajid Javid has set out an ambition for more than 300,000 homes to be built each year by the mid-2020s.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government was speaking on a visit to a new housing development in Cambridgeshire where he launched Homes England, the new government agency which is replacing the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
He said housing affordability was the “biggest housing issue in this country”, and while increasing the number of homes built from about 217,000 per year to 300,000 was a “big ask” he believes it is achievable.
He described Homes England as “the new government agency which is part of our plan to make sure we’re building far more homes in this country”.
He continued: “What this agency will do, and today here where we are in Cambridgeshire is a fantastic example of it, is help to assemble land, especially brownfield land, that can be developed into homes and work with those developers, help them with infrastructure and particularly focus on what I call the small and medium-size developers to help them build the homes that we need.”
Asked how the launch of Homes England was more than a rebrand from its predecessor the HCA, he said: “One thing that’s very different from before is the new agency has a lot more power, including a lot more what I would call firepower, so a lot more financial resources, for example.”
THE WELCOME desire by the Government to build 300,000 new homes a year is made even more challenging by the abiding failure of previous administrations to meet modest targets, not least because significant schemes always run into hostility from so-called Nimbys intent on thwarting the planning process.
As evidenced by opposition to planning applications in, for example, north-west Leeds, Burleyin-Wharfedale and Green Hammerton between Harrogate and York, local councils – and Communities Secretary Sajid Javid – have their work cut out.
It’s all the more reason for Mr Javid – and newly appointed Housing Ministers such as Richmond’s wellregarded MP Rishi Sunak – begins a new era of positive engagement with communities to not only make the economic case for additional homes, but articulate coherently how the planning system can benefit existing residents. Planned sensitively, new developments can help to support local services and businesses, make it easier for first-time buyers to gain a foothold on the property ladder and help to finance much-needed local amenities.
The problem, however, is one of trust – infrastructure investment is invariably an after-thought and the fact that Yorkshire councils have more than £20m stockpiled from Section 106 agreements, money paid by developers for community improvements as a condition of their planning consent, adds to the suspicion. For this reason, Mr Javid’s housing policy will need firm foundations if he is to win over ‘not in my back yard’ opponents and see his good intentions turned into bricks and mortar.