Figure is result of new method for calculating housing need, housing secretary tells MPs
A new method for calculating housing need will result in a national target of 370,000 new homes per year, the housing secretary has announced.
Presenting the government’s plans for a revised National Planning Policy Framework to MPs this afternoon, Angela Rayner said the UK was facing “the most acute housing crisis in living memory”.
The secretary of state, who also serves as deputy prime minister, accused the previous Conservative government of “caving into their anti-growth backbenchers” by effectively abandoning mandatory housing targets.
She said the “errors of the past” had resulted in just a third of councils having a plan that is under five years old and a situation in which the number of new homes built this year is expected to drop below 200,000.
Labour announced in its first days in government that it would re-introduce mandatory targets but Rayner told MPs today that this would be “insufficient” on its own, revealing that the new government would also change the standard method for calculating housing need.
“What I say won’t be without controversy but this is urgent,” she told MPs.
The methodology will move from a population-based model to a stock-based model, incorporating an uplift where house prices are “most out of step with incomes”.
MHCLG says the previous method was based on population projections based on 2014 data and Rayner said this had resulted in “all sorts of odd outcomes”, with certain areas having unsuitably low targets.
According to the department, the new method will require every part of the country to increase delivery, although the abandonment of the 35% urban uplift, described as “arbitrary” by the housing secretary, means that targets for the capital may be lower than previously stated.
Rayner denied the government was “lowering our ambition for London”, claiming the previous 100,000-home target was unachievable.
London’s own plan has a target of around 52,000 homes, while delivery last year was roughly 35,000. Rayner said the new government’s own target of approximately 80,000 was “still a huge ask”.
The department believes that the changes are necessary to build capacity in the housebuilding sector and to achieve the levels of consents necessary to deliver its aim of building 1.5 million homes in five years.
Rayner has written to every council leader and chief executive in England to make clear that there is “not just a professional responsibility but a moral obligation to see more homes built”.
She told local leaders that she would not hesitate to use intervention powers if necessary, including taking over an authority’s plan-making directly.
Her department is consulting on changes to intervention criteria, to make sure ministers are able to flexibly use the broad powers they already have.
As part of their plan-making process, local authorities will be required to identify so-called “grey belt” land to be brought forward for development.
Grey belt, which was coined by the Labour Party earlier this year, is defined in detail for the first time in the NPPF.
It includes land on the edge of existing settlements or roads, as well as old petrol stations and car parks. According to the department, the definition has been developed primarily in terms of the contribution to the five green belt purposes.
As well as introducing the new “grey belt” category, the new NPPF will increase the amount of weight given to previously developed land and brownfield land that lies within the green belt, increasing the presumption in favour.
The NPPF will apply a sequential test for grey belt release. If local authorities are making a plan and cannot satisfy their housing target through brownfield development or through cross-boundary cooperation with neighbouring authorities, grey belt will be the next land released.
The government does not have estimates of how much grey belt land exists or how much housing they think could be delivered on this land and is waiting for local authorities to come up with calculations.
Grey belt land released for development will be subject to the government’s ‘golden rules’, which make clear that development should deliver 50% affordable homes, increase access to green spaces and put the necessary infrastructure in place, such as schools and GP surgeries.
As well as introducing reforms to the planning system for housing, the NPPF will also bring forward changes to the regime for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project system, ahead of further reforms to the process planned by the government.
Rayner also announced that the government would publish a long-term housing strategy “in the coming months”.
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