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Blaming planning for housing crisis ‘is completely misconceived’, says Starmer
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned whether changes to planning laws will help solve the housing crisis a day after the government announced a “radical” overhaul of the system.
Speaking at the Local Government Association’s virtual annual conference today, Sir Kier said: “The idea that the housing crisis is all about a planning problem is completely misconceived... so let’s put planning decisions where they belong, which is in local communities, made by local councils.”
It comes after prime minister Boris Johnson announced a raft of changes that will make it easier for developers to build without going through the traditional planning process, including allowing vacant buildings to be demolished and rebuilt as homes without submitting ‘normal’ planning applications.
Outlining his plans yesterday, Mr Johnson said: “Why are we so slow building homes by comparison with other European countries... I’ll tell you why: because time is money. And the newt-counting delays in our system are a massive drag on the productivity and the prosperity of this country.”
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But Sir Keir said the way for the country to deal with the current housing crisis is “not by changing the planning system but by actually putting a shoulder to the wheel to build the houses that have been promised so many many times”.
He added: “Councils know their communities and they know the planning decisions that need to be made and so we want more control locally and not less control locally.”
Sir Keir said Mr Johnson’s ‘new deal’, which includes a £5bn investment in infrastructure to help get Britain building after the COVID-19 crisis, is “not much of a deal”.
He said: “We did an audit of the promises he made yesterday against existing promises or manifesto commitments and there’s a massive overlap.”
The Labour leader added that he would like to see the government prioritise jobs and unemployment ahead of infrastructure projects.
