The road to 1.5 million new homes

One week after the announcement of the prime minister’s new Plans for Change, councils have been told they must meet a new target of building 370,000 per year in the mission to build 1.5 million new homes for Britain over the next five years.

In a bid to meet this ambitious target, the government has rolled out new targets for councils to meet to ensure the goal is met, in a pledge to try and tackle the housing criss head-on. As it stands, 1.3 million households are on council housing wait lists and a record number of households — including 160,000 — are living in temporary accommodation. The pressure is on, then, for the government to achieve this mission.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), as updated their planing rules, with regulations now including: councils told to play their part by meeting housebuilding targets, prioritising housebuilding in areas where houses are the most expensive, and for councils and developers giving consideration to social rent in making sure their houses are affordable for those who need them most.

Under the current planning network, just under one third of local authorities have adopted a local plan within the last five years and the number of homes granted planing permission has plummeted to its lowest level in a decade. Subsequently, following a consultation, areas must commit to the new NPPF within the next 12 weeks, and failure to do so will result in ministers intervening. 

Prime minister Keir Starmer said: “For far too long, working people graft hard but are denied the security of owning their own home. I know how important it is — our pebble dash semi meant everything to our family growing up. But with a generation of young people whose dream of homeownership feels like a distant reality, and record levels of homelessness, there’s no shying way from the housing crisis have inherited.

“We owe it to those working families to take urgent action, and that is what this government is doing. Our Plan for change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planing system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people’s pockets.

“We’re taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people.”