Conservatives pledge 500,000 homes by 2022 on top of one million homes target

In the manifesto, launched today, the Conservatives pledged to “meet our 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the end of 2020 and we will deliver half a million more by the end of 2022”.

The party concedes that not enough homes have been built in the UK “for generations, and buying or renting a home has become increasingly unaffordable”.

Housing associations will be given “greater flexibility” to increase the number of homes they can deliver, “building on their considerable track record in recent years”.

The tone towards the housing association sector has improved markedly since a few years ago when previous chancellor George Osborne attacked the sector for not building enough homes.

Housing associations will also be supported to increase their specialist housing stock, the Conservatives said. The supported housing sector has warned that the government’s proposal to link funding to Local Housing Allowance would limit future developments.

There was no mention in the manifesto of the flagship 2015 plans to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants and sell council homes to pay for it. In a recent interview with Inside Housing, housing minister Gavin Barwell justified the policy by reference to the 2015 manifesto pledge.

The quality of homes built is also a focus for the party. The manifesto states: “We will build better houses, to match the quality of those we have inherited from previous generations.”

There is a new recognition that councils need to be building homes in order to meet the party’s targets. The manifesto states: “We will never achieve the numbers of new homes we require without the active participation of social and municipal housing providers.

However, the party accuses councils of building for “political gain rather than for social purpose” in some instances and adds they have been “amongst the worst offenders” in failing to build “sustainable, integrated communities”.

Last weekend Theresa May pledged to do deals with “ambitious” councils to help them build social rented homes.

The manifesto expands on this pledge. It states the party will enter into deals with “ambitious, pro-development” councils to help them build more social housing and provide “significant low-cost capital funding”.