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A Labour victory next week will see Sir Keir Starmer put himself on a collision course with “NIMBY” local authorities within days of taking office as he pushes ahead with radical plans to build 1.5 million new homes during his party’s first term in office.
Local authorities will be prevented from “obstructing” development on newly designated “grey belt” land, party sources said.
Sources said councils would be able to democratically approve new homes in the best locations, but it would be a question of “how to build them” rather than “if to build them”.
If Labour wins this Thursday’s election, the next Deputy First Minister, Angela Rayner, is expected to announce the Government’s new housing development plans within days.
This involves reclassifying areas of the green belt deemed to be of poor quality as “grey belt” – identified as car parks, scrub land and former rubbish dumps – and opening them up for development.
She intends to write to local authorities instructing them to re-examine green belt land and identify grey belt areas that could be reclassified and developed.
Labour officials said “smart” freeing up green belt land would help local people buy homes, but low-quality, unsightly areas should not be protected from development.
Sources said the party would not apologise for ensuring the council approved the “resistant” housing.
Where will the new homes be built?
Labour has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes over five years if it wins power next week.
Achieving this goal requires radical reform of planning rules to free up land, including reclassifying low-quality Green Belt land suitable for development, such as old car parks, scrub land and former rubbish dumps, into “grey belt”.
This could see the new government push ahead with existing, previously limited, plans, such as Chancellor Michael Gove’s original plan to build 150,000 new homes near Cambridge.
There has also been speculation about developments in the Midlands, including areas close to the M1 and M6 motorways near Nottingham, Stafford and Northampton. Land near the Thames estuary in Essex and Kent could also be identified for new developments.
In a joint interview with the Labour leader The Sunday TimesShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said it was “urgent” for Labour to become the party of housebuilders. “For kids like us today, [from working-class backgrounds]some of those opportunities [to own a home] not exist”.
A tougher approach is likely to face resistance, particularly from conservative local authorities and those in rural areas with large areas of green space.
However, the Conservative government failed to meet its target of building 300,000 new homes a year, due in part to delays in the planning system.
Labour has pledged to meet its target of 300,000 per year but Sir Keir acknowledged in the interview that while it might not meet that target in the first year, the total would reach 1.5 million by the end of the five-year parliament.
Searchland, a development land procurement specialist, estimates that reclassifying just 1% of green belt land could free up space for 738,000 new homes.
But the Conservatives warned the measures would damage the environment.
Speaking to voters thinking of switching from the Conservatives to Labour or Reform this Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden appealed to them to return to his own party, telling Sky News: “The alternative is Keir Starmer and he has plans to raise people’s taxes – whether you’re a pensioner and you’re paying tax on your basic pension, whether you’re a first-time home buyer and you’re paying tax on your first home – and he has plans to ease restrictions on immigration and building in the Green Belt.”
If elected, a Labour government is likely to publish a draft national planning policy framework which would reimpose targets on local authorities to meet local housing needs.
If elected, he would also recruit 300 planning officers to speed up planning permission and prioritise local people for new homes.
2024 Election
Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and other party leaders are campaigning. I‘s election live blog is your go-to place for everything general election news.
The Reform Party has come under fire after campaigner Andrew Parker was found to have made racist comments towards Chancellor Rishi Sunak, with Nigel Farage expressing his “disappointment” over it.
meanwhile, I We’ve summarised the major parties’ pledges on key issues – see our breakdown for NHS, Education and Defence. You can also see each party’s key manifesto pledges broken down by party: Conservative, Green, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Reform UK.