Angela Rayner has issued a stern warning that councils will lose their planning powers if they fail to meet housing targets.
The Housing Secretary has unveiled new plans, increasing mandatory housing targets from 300,000 to 370,000 annually.
Rayner indicated that councils failing to achieve these targets would be required to develop on low-value “grey belt” land, such as disused car parks within the green belt.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Rayner highlighted that two-thirds of local councils in England lack a current plan for constructing the necessary new homes in their regions.
Going forward, all councils will be mandated to create a plan outlining where they will construct homes to meet their annual targets. The Housing Secretary also introduced “golden rules” for green belt development, stipulating that half of the new homes must be affordable.
Rayner committed to collaborating with local authorities to initiate a “council house revolution”. However, the Housing Secretary cautioned that councils failing to comply would be stripped of their planning authority, with Whitehall imposing a housing plan on them.
Rayner acknowledged to MPs that these plans may be contentious, but criticized the Conservative government for “avoiding tough decisions on housebuilding,” noting that the number of new homes built is below 200,000. She stated, “While the previous government weakened housing targets, yielding to their anti-growth backbenchers, this Labour government is making the difficult decisions, prioritising people and the country.
“For the first time, we will mandate local housing targets, requiring local authorities to use a uniform method to determine the number of homes to build. However, this alone is not enough to meet our goals, so we’re also revising the standard method for calculating housing need to better reflect the urgency of supply in local areas.
“Instead of relying on outdated data, this new method will require local authorities to plan for homes in proportion to the size of existing communities, with an additional increase where house prices are most misaligned with local incomes.
“As a result, the collective total of these local targets will rise from approximately 300,000 a year to just over 370,000 a year.”
Responding to Rayner’s announcement, Shadow Housing Secretary Kemi Badenoch expressed concern that rural councils may be compelled to undertake housing projects that urban areas have not fulfilled.
She remarked, “Councillors have consistently voiced their fears that they will be forced, under a duty to cooperate, to sacrifice their own green spaces to accommodate the housing needs that urban leaders, who are her allies, fail to meet.”
Badenoch also questioned the penalties for urban council leaders who do not meet their housing targets.
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