Theresa May will turn her attention back to the UK’s housing market on Monday, with a promise to rewrite “the rule book in terms of planning” to force councils to hit housebuilding targets.
The prime minister is expected to outline changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to release more land for development and to remove planning powers from councils that miss their goals and give them to an independent inspector.
“Many people in the UK today, particularly young people, fear they will never be able to own a home of their own,” the prime minister said in a BBC interview on Sunday.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the housing secretary, Sajid Javid, said councils would be given higher targets for homes to be built and those that failed would have their planning powers removed and handed to an independent inspector.
Javid said he would approve at least two new towns between Oxford and Cambridge, with up to three more to follow. Tomorrow he will unveil a new National Planning Policy Framework to pressure councils to build affordable homes for public-sector “key workers” including nurses, teachers and police officers.
The Telegraph meanwhile reports that Britain’s biggest builders and councils have warned that they could block new housing developments as “toothless” reforms have failed to provide enough infrastructure for new homes.
The attack comes on the day the Government will announce a raft of new measures it hopes will kick-start a “housing revolution”
The Homebuilders’ Federation, County Councils Network and Town and Country Planning Association are among six groups that have written to Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Housing, warning that there is “not enough reason for planning authorities in particular to co-operate [with county councils that control infrastructure], and often strong reasons not to”.
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