Government Announces Housing Plan
Rishi Sunak has announced that the government will meet its manifesto commitment to build 1 million homes over this parliament.
Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced the long-term plan for housing in a speech in which he laid out the plans.
The government will launch a £24 million Planning Skills Delivery Fund to clear backlogs and get the right skills in place and set up a new "super-squad" team of leading planners and other experts charged with working across the planning system to unblock major housing developments.
Gove said: "Most people agree that we need to build more homes – the question is how we go about it.
"Rather than concreting over the countryside, we have set out a plan today to build the right homes in the right places where there is community support – and we’re putting the resources behind it to help make this vision a reality.
"At the heart of this is making sure that we build beautiful and empower communities to have a say in the development in their area."
Sunak said: "Today I can confirm that we will meet our manifesto commitment to build 1 million homes over this Parliament. That’s a beautiful new home for a million individual families in every corner of our country.
"We need to keep going because we want more people to realise the dream of owning their own home.
"We won’t do that by concreting over the countryside – our plan is to build the right homes where there is the most need and where there is local support, in the heart of Britain’s great cities.
"Our reforms today will help make that a reality, by regenerating disused brownfield land, streamlining planning process and helping homeowners to renovate and extend their houses outwards and upwards."
The government has also doubled down on plans to regenerate 20 towns and cities. Cambridge, central London and Leeds are next to be regenerated. Plans for Cambridge will see it boosted as Europe's science capital and constraints will be addressed that have left the city with some of the most expensive property markets outside London with companies fighting over limited lab space and commercial property with prices that rival London, Paris and Amsterdam. There will be a new quarter of well-designed, sustainable and beautiful neighbourhoods for people to live in, work and study. A quarter with space for cutting-edge laboratories, commercial developments fully adapted to climate change and that is green, with life science facilities encircled by country parkland and woodland accessible to all who live in Cambridge.
£800 million will also be allocated today from the £1.5 billion Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund to unlock up to 56,000 new homes on brownfield sites.
The government also announced plans for densification to increase the population in city centres in a bid to improve productivity.
Source: GOV.uk
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