The deputy PM is to announce new rules to boost affordable homes as a £20bn shortfall in UK public finances is revealed

A sweeping overhaul of planning rules to trigger the building of many more affordable homes will be announced by the government this week as it confronts the economic and social legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner will unveil a new National Planning Policy Framework to MPs on Tuesday before they depart for the summer recess in a move that will strengthen requirements for far higher numbers of affordable homes to be built in areas of need, starting this autumn.

Writing for the Observer before the announcement, Rayner says that since entering government ministers have found a “frankly scandalous legacy” lurking “under each stone we lift”.

She says that with so many people struggling to find a home or roof over their head “delivering social and affordable houses at scale” is her “No 1 priority”.

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Sources close to Rayner, who was brought up in a council home in Stockport, said she was laser-focused on delivering more social housing. There are 4m households in the social rented sector, but nearly 1.3m households on social housing waiting lists.

During Labour’s 13 years of ­government between 1997 and 2010, there were nearly 363,000 new social rent homes delivered compared with just over 171,000 in the 13 years of Conservative rule between 2010 and 2023 – and of these 45% (more than 77,000) were delivered in the first two years, meaning they were likely to have been the results of the affordable homes programme put in place by the preceding Labour government.

  • @tankplanker
    2•2 months ago

    My concern with this is that they have been cosying up to the likes of BlackRock so we’ll see a for profit shared ownership scheme that will be just awful in practice and future governments can make it even worse.

    For the private market all I want is simpler planning, a ban on building on flood plains, stricter regulations around new build sizing and construction, and taxing land banks at full value of any planning permission they hold or land value, which ever is higher.

    Couple that with a mix of social housing based around council housing and not for profit social housing and we are good. However I cannot shake that they are trying to do this on the cheap up front and that costs us in the long term.