Political Party Intentions for House Building

With the impending General Election, we’ve taken the opportunity to look at the main three parities proposals for the Planning System should they enter Government. Whilst much has been picked over about each Party’s intentions, we thought it better to take a much wider overview of Party attitudes to new housing development.

Looking at all three manifestos, the key point is that all parties are committed to solving the country’s housing crisis in one way or another.

Both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats propose building 300,000 new homes per year, with the Lib Dems proposing that 100,000 of that target are specifically for social rent. In contrast, Labour only highlight the aim to build up to 150,000 new social homes per year by the end of the next Parliament.

Both the Conservatives and Labour see the prioritisation of brownfield development and equally seek to protect the green belt. The Liberals remain silent on the matter, but it would be safe to assume that they would follow the other two.

There are of course other details, specific to each party, about infrastructure delivery, energy efficiency, design and putting the climate emergency at the heart of decision making.

The key point with our reading of the situation is that there is significant stability across all parties about the need for new house building. This should continue to see Development Plans being prepared in a positive way to meet housing needs (however they end up being calculated).

Therefore, despite the political posturing and irrespective of who you support, the fundamental message to the housebuilding industry is that we will still be building.