 set up by Prescott in the New Labour years – since abolished – and the development corporations used by Heseltine to successfully rejuvenate dilapidated parts of London, Liverpool and Manchester in the 1980s and 90s. Details are still being worked through but the idea would be for corporations to be created by the Government in consultation with local areas. They would be focused on long-term housing plans that go beyond a single electoral cycle to prevent them becoming political footballs. They may also play a role in getting the biggest housing sites ready for development, for example cleaning them up, building key infrastructure and then parcelling up the land into plots that developers could buy and build homes on. A){kind=link}
Labour has spied an opportunity where Gove and Sunak have stumbled
After years basking in the sun of low interest rates and supportive government policies, a perfect storm has hit Britain’s housebuilding sector.
Surging interest rates, the end of Help to Buy and strict new planning regulation mean the number of homes built in Britain is expected to slump to a five-year low of 225,000 this year, according to Savills.
The House Building Federation has warned that annual completions could soon drop below an all-time low of 120,000 if current trends continue.
Bogged down by so-called nutrient neutrality rules – which have kiboshed development across entire regions of England – and changes under the Conservative government that have made building harder, developers say reaching the targeted 300,000 homes per year is approaching the realms of fantasy.