The Government is currently on course to fail to meet its target to build 1m homes by 2020, housing minister Gavin Barwell has admitted.
Barwell told Sky News that the Government is building about 170,000 homes year, but added: “We clearly need to do better.”
He continued: “We inherited a position in 2010 where house-building rates in this country were at their lowest since the 1920s.
“We’ve seen significant progress.
“But absolutely we are still not at the rate that we need to be in order to meet our ambition to get this country building the homes that are so desperately needed.”
Barwell went on to announce six new housing zones and a £18m “capacity fund” to help councils tackle planning issues on large sites.
He also revealed that the Government will support a new garden town at Shepway, Kent, which will deliver up to 12,000 new homes.
Shadow secretary of state for housing John Healey was scathing. He said: “In the last six years we’ve built fewer homes in this country than under any prime minister since the 1920s.
“Now ministers are admitting that six years of failure could stretch to ten.
“Since 2010 the housing budget has been slashed, the number of people who are homeless has doubled and the number of home owners has fallen by 200,000.
“The country deserves a proper plan for fixing the housing crisis, not more hot air.”
The 1m target was announced by David Cameron’s government last year and was reiterated at the Conservative Party Conference in October by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.
He put in place a new £3bn home-building fund to help speed up development
New measures are likely to be announced in the Autumn Statement, with a Housing White Paper expected to be published shortly.
Was there a single soul on the planet that honestly believed the government would deliver on the target when they announced it?
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It was a ******** figure to excite people, with clearly very little thought (or intent) put into it.
My concern is that housing is becoming a bigger and bigger cause of unhappiness and empty pockets in the common man, and it simply isn’t being thought of as a serious matter. It feels like a spare part in every political discussion (i.e. budgets), and very rarely gets spoken about seriously. We get claptrap along the lines of “we take housing very seriously and we’re in a crisis that needs to be tackled,” and then we never do anything about it.
Whether we like this government or not, they have a growing responsibility to put forward a realistic plan, necessary funding and a long-termist attitude. Next week’s statement is an opportunity to get the ball rolling on a sustainable housing policy, but no doubt it will be focused on attacking landlords, and more self-congratulatory “we’re putting first time buyers first” statements because “we believe in the rights of every citizen to have a roof over their head.” Yawn!
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As gets proved over and over again government doesn’t ‘do sums’. (or listen!)
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You have to love governments hope over experience statements
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“Barwell told Sky News that the Government is building about 170,000 homes year”
Sorry, Mr Barwell – WHO is building this 170,000 homes?
Just goes to show what the guy knows…
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