‘Moral obligation’ to build more homes, Angela Rayner tells council chiefs

The Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Housing Secretary, wrote to council leaders and metropolitan mayors on Wednesday to set out plans for 1.5 million new homes by 2029, which she described as “radical”.

She warned leaders they may have to tear up draft housing masterplans if they are at an early stage, and said authorities could have to map out new green belt boundaries.

The letters follow an exchange in the Commons with her Conservative shadow Kemi Badenoch, who warned Labour might approve “1.5 million ugly homes” if they press ahead with their plans.

In her letter to council leaders and chief executives, Ms Rayner wrote: “I know that, like every member of Government, you will feel not just a professional responsibility but a moral obligation to see more homes built, to take tough choices necessary to fix the foundations of our housing system.

“And we will only succeed in this shared mission if we work together, because it falls to you and your authorities not only to plan for the houses we need, but also to deliver the affordable and social housing that can provide working families with a route to a secure home.”

She told authority leaders they see the “depth of the housing crisis” as they “place record numbers of homeless children in temporary accommodation” and experience “waiting lists for social housing getting longer and longer”.

Ms Rayner also confirmed authorities will have access to a £450 million pot so they can acquire and build homes for families at risk of homelessness, and will consult on increasing fees for some planning applications so councils come closer to recovering the cost of processing them.

Authorities drawing up local plans will have to reconsider the proposals in line with revised planning rules.

If councils have sent their plans to an inspector for sign-off, they can keep the proposals but must start on a new document immediately, to align local rules with the new system.

“I understand that will delay the adoption of some plans, but I want to balance keeping plans flowing to adoption with making sure they plan for sufficient housing,” Ms Rayner wrote, adding authorities will get some financial support.

“I want to be clear that local authorities will be expected to make every effort to allocate land in line with their housing need, as per the standard method, noting it is possible to justify a lower housing requirement than the figure the method sets on the basis of local constraints on land and delivery, such as flood risk.”

The Housing Secretary added her Government is “committed to protecting nature” but building on brownfield land “can only be part of the answer”, so councils should expect to review the green belts that surround some areas including London, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Tyne and Wear.

District Councils’ Network vice-chairwoman Bridget Smith, who leads South Cambridgeshire District Council, told the PA news agency: “If we fail to meet the housing need, particularly in South Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, all we do is then drive up house prices and drive up rents, so if we really care about making sure that there are sufficient houses for the people working in our area, for families where the children want to stay close to their parents, then we have to deliver the houses that are needed.

“But we have to deliver houses that are needed in the places that people want to live, we have to make sure that we take an infrastructure-first approach to big new housing developments – we can’t be just creating arbitrary housing estates where there isn’t public transport, where there isn’t education, where there isn’t health, where there aren’t leisure facilities.”

The Liberal Democrat councillor said: “As a local planning authority, we do have an obligation to meet housing need, and we have an obligation to meet the evidence-led housing need, not arbitrary housing numbers.

“We go through considerable efforts to identify what the housing need is based on what the jobs growth’s going to be.”

South Cambridgeshire’s local plan was five years old last autumn, and work is under way on new local planning rules for the area and next-door Cambridge.

Ms Smith said under Ms Rayner’s proposals, her area is “not looking at a significant increase in the number of houses” in a new plan, because the council’s evidence already forecasts a higher housing need than the previous government had suggested.

At the despatch box on Tuesday, shadow housing secretary Ms Badenoch pointed out the Government had ditched the previous policy requirement for “beautiful housing”.

The Conservative frontbencher said: “She’s telling us she’s going to be replacing what (local people) want with a requirement to meet 1.5 million ugly houses instead.

“Why on earth would they take out something which means so much to local communities?

“People deserve to live in beautiful homes and the fact that the Labour Party doesn’t care about that shows exactly how they’re going to develop their policies.”

Ms Rayner told BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday morning: “This is ridiculous – beautiful is so subjective.”