Just nigh of three years since Robert Jenrick’s Planning for the Future Whitepaper sent Tory backbenchers running for the greenbelt, Michael Gove today announced a brownfield-first battle plan to tackle the housing crisis that still managed to provoke the ire of colleagues.
Unveiling a “long-term plan” underpinned by “long-term thinking”, the Levelling Up Secretary confirmed a raft of seemingly pro-development new priorities, including the “regeneration and renaissance” of Cambridge, central London and central Leeds.
Mr Gove also announced:
- Proposals to extend permitted development rights in an effort to create more homes in “the hearts of our cities” by making it easier to convert empty retail premises and betting shops into flats and housing
- A £24m Planning Skills Delivery Fund to clear backlogs in the planning system and “get the right skills in planning authorities”
- A new “super-squad” team of leading planners and other experts to unlock major housing developments, starting in Cambridge to “turbocharge the government’s plans for the city
- Plans to slash red tape to enable barn conversions and the repurposing of architectural buildings and disused warehouses, with a priority for inner-city areas
- A review into extending permitted development rights for homeowners, making it easier to build extensions and loft conversions
Brownfield, brownfield, brownfield appears to be the name of the game for Conservative housing policy movingforward, a trajectory that surely even the most skeptical of backbenchers can get behind.
But just before Gove’s speech announcing his new plans, Anthony Browne, MP for South Cambridgeshire, took to Twitter — or ‘X’ as it has today bizarrely been rebadged — to decry the “nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding on Cambridge”.
Responding to the criticism Rishi Sunak, speaking from a visit to St Modwen’s Cofton Park development site near Rednal, Birmingham, said: “No-one is doing mass housebuilding in Cambridge, this is about adding a new urban quarter to Cambridge, which is something that local communities have spoken about.
“And of course that will be done in dialogue with local communities.”
But opposition aside, would it even be possible to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in places such as Cambridge without encroaching on the greenbelt whatsoever?
Anna Clarke, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Housing Forum, is sceptical, Tweeting (or X’ing) out an overwhelmingly green-coloured map depicting Cambridge’s designated green belt.
She asked: “So the government wants to more than double the size of homes in Cambridge, but also not build on any greenbelt. How?”
Lest we forget, Labour is drawing up plans of its own ahead of the next general election, vowing to “back the builders not blockers” by building more homes on green belt land and bring back housing targets — a promise that will go down particularly well with the big housebuilders.
It will, then, ultimately remain to be seen as to whether the Tories’ time in government will be “long-term” enough to see through Mr Gove’s plans for the Conservatives to reclaim their crown as the party of ownership.
