ishi Sunak has hit out against “top-down targets” on housebuilding amid signs the Government is rowing back on the Tory manifesto commitment to build 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.
It came as Housing Secretary Michael Gove, delivering a speech on planning reforms in London on Monday, said “I completely stand by” the target, but did not say when it would be reached.
Ministers are well short of the figure after the Prime Minister last year made it advisory rather than mandatory as he looked to see off a potential backbench rebellion.
What central Government sitting in Whitehall and Westminster shouldn’t do is ride roughshod over those views, impose top-down targets, carpet over the countryside
There were signs of more local Tory opposition to his housing strategy as the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire Anthony Browne vowed to “do everything” to stop the “nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding on Cambridge”.
Responding to the criticism, Mr Sunak stressed the importance of bringing “local communities along with you” as he said Westminster politicians should not “ride roughshod over those views, impose top-down targets, carpet over the countryside”.
Asked whether the manifesto pledge of 300,000 new homes a year still stands, the Prime Minister told reporters at a housing development site in the West Midlands: “We are making progress, I’m proud of that progress and we’re not stopping there.
“But we’ve got to do it in the right way, I don’t want to concrete over the countryside, that’s something that is very special about Britain.
“We’re making it easier for people to expand homes upwards and outwards, we’re making it easier to build on brownfield sites with more investment and we’re investing in the planning system.”
Mr Gove, meanwhile, expressed his commitment to the 300,000 new homes a year manifesto pledge.
It comes only two weeks after the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee warned that Tory ministers are unlikely to deliver it and said Mr Sunak’s decision to drop the compulsory target was “already having a damaging impact on efforts to increase the building of new homes”.
Mr Gove said after a speech in King’s Cross: “The 300,000 target by the middle of this decade is one I completely stand by.”
Asked when the Government is expected to hit it, he said: “As soon as we possibly can.”
He said rampant inflation makes “delivering against that target more difficult” but said he is “confident we are on a trajectory to reach that 300,000 target”.
In his speech, the Housing Secretary set out measures including on leasehold reform, simplifying planning procedures, expanding planning capacity and regenerating and reviving inner cities.
A new “inner city renaissance” is the most important component of the strategy, Mr Gove said, as he argued for “using all of the levers that we have to promote urban regeneration rather than swallowing up virgin land”.
The proposals include developing a new urban quarter in Cambridge with space for homes, art facilities, laboratories and green areas.
But South Cambridgeshire MP Mr Browne lashed out against the plan, tweeting: “I will do everything I can to stop the Government’s nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding on Cambridge, where all major developments are now blocked by the Environment Agency because we have quite literally run out of water. Our streams, rivers and ponds already run dry.”
In response, Mr Gove said he believes his colleagues will be won over by the detail of the plans.
The senior Tory said: “It will be the case that I’m sure that Conservative backbenchers and others once they have a chance to look at our plans will realise that this is in the national interest and that’s why we’re acting.”