Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has today (December 19) issued a new threat to English councils to ‘stop dragging their feet’ on consent for new homes or lose their responsibility for planning.
At the same time, however, he is also expected to ease the house building targets imposed on councils despite earlier warnings that it could further dampen the construction industry and threaten existing targets of 300,000 new homes a year.
A spokesperson at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said today (December 19): “We have been clear that the government is on the side of the builders and not the blockers. Councils must play their part and deliver the homes this country needs, without concreting over the countryside.
“The housing secretary has already told councils that they need to step up, and we are providing a lot of support to help them do so – so those that continue to drag their feet can expect to face government intervention.”
A new planning policy framework is expected to free local authorities from using a population-based formula to set their multi-year housing plans and instead set lower targets if they can argue that such a formula would have changed the character of an area or threatened greenbelt land.
