Delivery of 611 New Dwellings per year in Spelthorne. Is this set to change?
Ministers responsible for housing seem to enjoy the same security of tenure as Premier League football managers. Planning reform remains a hot topic and in addition to his “levelling up” portfolio, Michael Gove the newly appointed housing minister, will have to shape a new strategy to meet the govern-ment’s 300,000-a-year housing target after the government signalled a retreat from major planning liberalisation. The Minister has sig-nalled pauses, rethinks and resets on several of the most contentious issues he faces. This is reflected in his hints that house building targets will be scrapped and that much greater emphasis will be placed on building houses in the north and midlands. He has also criticised “overcautious” lending by banks to first-time buyers.
The Minister, speaking in front of the hous-ing, communities and local government com-mittee in November, said: “In making a calcu-lation of housing need overall, one of the things I wanted to do is to look at how the numbers are generated in the first place….Because I think that some of the as-sumptions there are probably out of date….And I also think that some of the ways in which the use of those numbers is deployed by the planning inspector can be done in a more sophisticated way. But I don’t want to over promise at this stage.”
Gove confirmed the government still wants to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s but downplayed the importance of hit-ting the target at all costs and admitted it would be “stretching” due to issues such as materials and labour market pressure and the pandemic. “I want to make sure that people recognise that we are not taking the approach of saying ‘let’s hit that target as quickly as possible,’” he said. “We absolutely do want to hit that target. But we also want to take ac-count of beauty, the environment, quality, decency, to local demo-cratic control and infrastruc-ture as well.”
It is hoped that a new football manager will change the game plan and that may well include the judicious in-troduction of substitutes. He will be deter-mined to inspire hope in those who lost faith in his predecessor.
We are told to expect the revised planning guidelines in Spring this year.