Brown announces new housing targets and legislation

House-building has been confirmed as a priority for Gordon Brown's Government which has signalled a major drive to provide more affordable homes.

This has been underlined by ambitious new targets which should mean that by 2020 some 3 million new dwellings will be built, over a quarter of million more than under existing programmes.

As a consequence the annual house-building target for 2016 will be raised from 200,000 new homes to 240,000.

These revised targets were highlighted by the prime minister as he announced the Government's legislative programme which includes three separate planning and housing bills.

In a statement to Parliament the prime minister explained that English Partnerships was negotiating a new deal with the Ministry of Defence to acquire at least six major redundant sites which would be redeveloped to provide over 7,000 new homes.

Brown said similar discussions were under way with the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency, the British Railways Board Residuary Body and the Department of Health.

As a result, MPs heard, over 550 sites owned by central government were now under consideration for housing development which could potentially accommodate 100,000 new dwellings. Whitehall also believes local authorities own sufficient brownfield sites to provide for a further 60,000 new homes.

Brown used his statement to announce that the Government will be consulting on how local councils could use the New Towns Act to enable  'eco towns' (with zero or low carbon homes) to be built more quickly.

He insisted the accelerated building programme would be sustainable and would concentrate on brownfield land. The prime minister said this would not result in the concreting over of the Green Belt.

"I can assure the House that that we will continue to protect robustly the land designated as Green Belt," he said.

That commitment was reiterated during the subsequent parliamentary debate and at Prime Minister's question time in the Commons.

Brown made it clear that the Government still intended to publish a Planning Gain Supplement Bill but emphasised this was provisional.

He said the legislation would be dropped if by the time the Pre-Budget Statement is due in four months time a better way has been identified of ensuring that local communities can receive significantly more of the benefits of planning gain to invest in necessary infrastructure, and that such measures are workable and a better alternative than the proposed new land tax.

The prime minister promised both a Planning Reform Bill and a new Housing and Regeneration Bill in the coming parliamentary session. A housing green paper will also be published later this month.

The planning legislation will, among other measures, establish an infrastructure planning commission; a single consent regime for nationally significant infrastructure; a streamlined process for dealing with applications; changes to the local development plan regime; and provide new arrangements for local authorities to decide appeals on minor developments.

The housing and regeneration bill will set the new targets for housing provision, establish the new body Communities England, which brings together English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation; implement a European Court of Human Rights ruling on Gypsies and Travellers; and indicate how the New Towns Act will be used to deliver a series of "eco-towns".

Read Commons Hansard report (11 July Column 1449)

Roger Milne

12 July 2007