Angela Rayner has insisted that councils must meet the government’s housing targets, after local authorities branded them impossible to achieve. A BBC investigation found that the vast majority of councils raised concerns about the government’s flagship plan to build 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years in a recent consultation. The housing secretary told the BBC’s Politics Live programme that the government was listening to councils but the targets were mandatory. She added: “We’ve got a housing crisis in this country and therefore I make no apologies for the mandate that we were given to deliver the homes that people desperately need.”
Many councils accept the need for more new homes – but they are concerned about whether the targets handed to each of the 317 authorities in England are realistic or achievable. They fear the algorithm used to calculate the targets has not taken into account strains on local infrastructure, land shortages, and a lack of capacity in the planning system and construction industry. The concerns are shared by Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat authorities, according to BBC analysis of 90% of the consultation responses.
Asked whether the government would force councils to meet the targets, Rayner said: “We are saying that they’re mandatory targets… So we’re telling [councils], this is what we expect, and we’ll work with them to deliver it.” She pointed to £500m of extra funding for new affordable homes announced in the Budget as an example of support the government was providing.
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