The government’s announced planning policy risks putting “greed before need” and is “destined to fail”, says St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George.
Andrew George MP
His comments come in the wake of deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, launching changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which the government says will meet its ambitious housebuilding targets — one and a half million by the end of this Parliament.
The prime minister says the government will “back builders, not blockers”. But Andrew George says all the government will do is put “greed before need”. He said: “The Prime Minister has set up a false battle between ‘builders and blockers’ to push its reforms through.
“No government has met its housebuilding targets (unless the government builds them itself), and this government is no less doomed to failure.
“This is because setting housebuilding targets is based on a naive delusion that private developers would be willing to collude with government to drive down the price of completed homes; and to generally act against their commercial interests. Unfortunately, all mainstream political parties are adherents to this delusion.”
Andrew George has campaigned for housing justice for 40 years. Between his two spells in Parliament, he has been a housing professional, most recently as chief executive of Cornwall Community Land Trust (CCLT), a charity which works with local communities to deliver affordable housing.
He added: “Housebuilding targets are a means to an end. The end, of course, being the meeting (or at least reduction) of housing need. If, instead, the government set targets to meet need, it would provide for more creative opportunities to engage communities, rather than to alienate them, as now.
“Cornwall is one of the best examples of where the government’s policy fails. Cornwall has not just met its targets. It has exceeded them, and is one of the fastest growing places in the UK, almost trebling the housing stock in the last 60 years.
“Yet the housing problems of local families have got worse. Setting and meeting high housing targets doesn’t work in places like Cornwall, because developers make more money building homes for property investors (eg second and holiday homes owners) than in meeting housing need.”
