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Michael Gove on Tuesday insisted he had not “abandoned” local housing targets in the face of criticism over new planning policies that would give authorities latitude to build fewer homes than official calculations suggest are needed.
In a speech, the housing secretary said the fresh approach would focus on ensuring local governments have plans in place to guide new development and put pressure on councils to swiftly process building applications.
He said housing targets based on calculations of local needs would “remain the basis” of the system but confirmed these would be “advisory”. Gove said the approach would be “sensitive adjustment in meeting targets, not their abandonment”.
The government has been under pressure over its failure to reach its goal of building 300,000 new homes a year to tackle the UK’s acute housing shortage, but has been forced to compromise with Conservative MPs who have pressed for housing targets to be watered down.
Gove said opposition to development was “not unreasonable” and that the policy needed to cater to concerns about the environment, local services and aesthetics of new buildings to “[win] back support for new development”.
Housing and property industry groups said the changes would mean fewer houses being built.
Ian Fletcher, policy director at the British Property Federation, said: “By changing how local authorities should assess housing need the government is watering down its own national targets and creating more obstacles and delays to housing delivery.”
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations that provide affordable housing, said: “These changes, which effectively relax local housing targets, will result in fewer homes; and measures to get councils building and approving applications, whilst positive, won’t be enough to offset this risk.”
Gove said the changes were “not a route to the evasion” of the need to build homes. In an interview with the Times earlier on Tuesday, he said local authorities in England would have three months to put in place plans to meet their housing needs, with those that do not comply potentially losing their planning powers indefinitely to independent planning inspectors.
In the speech, he said councils would need to provide “rigorous evidence” to justify building fewer homes and that the government would publish “league tables” tracking the speed of planning approvals and delivery of targets.
Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to bring back the local targets, as he tries to position Labour as “the party of home ownership”.
Victoria Du Croz, partner at law firm Forsters, said “The overriding concern of the industry is that the government’s proposals will lead to even less housing being delivered. The government has produced no convincing evidence to demonstrate how their reforms will deliver more housing.”
Research commissioned by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), the trade body for housebuilders, found that the changes to the national planning policy framework could mean 77,000 fewer homes built each year. Housebuilding numbers have already dropped sharply this year, as high interest rates stalled the property market.
Stewart Baseley, executive chair of the HBF, said Tuesday’s announcement “does include some modest improvements to the planning process, [but] most are simply threats that will not make a difference in the short term”.
