One of the key policy pledges from Liz Truss before she was forced to resign was to scrap top-down housing target which senior rebels from the tory party are now warning Rishi Sunak to stick to his promises by doing this.
Dozens of Tory MPs are demanding changes to planning laws.
Ministers are due to bring back the Government’s flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which aims to introduce various planning reforms, as well as devolution powers, when it is passed next year.
But more than two dozen Tory MPs have ambushed the Bill with amendments that will tear up the current planning regime, while scrapping mandatory local housing targets.
The amendment to scrap local authority housing targets has been signed by 22 backbench Tories, who believe the system needs a complete overhaul to prevent “low density, car-dependent developments on greenfield sites.
MPs held talks with Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, on Thursday last week to press their case, however, it looks like Mr Gove is not planning to shift the Government’s position on housing targets.
Under the current system, local councils draw up housing targets based on the standardised national formula for assessing housing needs. But dozens of Tory MPs believe the top-down targets lead to housing developments being built where they are not wanted, and too often on greenfield land.
A Tory rebel who spoke to the i said: “We need to change the economics so that developers don’t just lazily use greenfield sites. We are very pleased to see much more ambitious policy. What we hate is low density, car dependent, unsustainable housing on greenfield sites, which were never built for the young people in our country and the old people don’t really like them either. “
Ministers are keenly aware that they need to increase housebuilding in this country at a time when the sector expects a major slowdown in homes being built due to the recession and higher mortgage costs.
Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said the amendment, which is being led by former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers, would make an “awful situation worse”.
“It deepens the recession. It hammers GDP, employment and tax revenue – meaning we need more austerity. It slashes affordable housing, since that’s funded by levies on private development.”
This article was first published here on the 20th November 2022
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