House building levels will not rise above their present paltry level unless the Tory government changes its ideological opposition to the state acting as a developer, the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has warned.
Lord Adonis said that housing delivery will not accelerate “beyond the current 120,000 to 150,000 a year until the state gets actively involved” and local authorities are given powers to build new homes.
His comments coincide with the government blocking a planning application by Ipswich Borough Council to build affordable homes, due to a lack of private-for-sale units. The local authority said it was “astonished” by the decision.
Adonis, speaking at June’s Construction Productivity Forum, told delegates that the government “hasn’t really cracked” the housing problem.
"There is a huge amount of public land that local authorities could develop for housing – a third of central London is state-owned – and there is significant scope for estate redevelopment."
Lord Adonis, National Infrastructure Commission
“We hit a post-war peak of 430,000 homes in 1967 which was the year Milton Keynes was designated a new town,” he said, adding that this showed what was achievable when the state took an active role.
“At a national level, the government needs to start planning new towns, and at a local level, allow councils to become developers and use public land for new homes – but it hasn’t done that for ideological reasons,” argued Adonis.
“There is a huge amount of public land that local authorities could develop for housing – a third of central London is state-owned – and there is significant scope for estate redevelopment.”
The government’s rejection of Ipswich’s affordable homes plans will add fuel to the debate on the role the state should take in housing delivery.
The council’s planning application to build 68 houses for affordable rent, 24 for shared ownership and two specialist homes for social rent was called in by the government in January 2015. Communities secretary Greg Clark turned down the application last month despite the recommendation of an independent planning inspector in September 2015 that the homes should go ahead.
In his decision letter, Clark said “a single cluster of 94 affordable units would conflict with the objective to achieve developments in which the affordable units are truly integrated into the market housing… to create inclusive and mixed communities.”
Labour council leader David Ellesmere said: “The secretary of state has blocked the application on the grounds that the development should contain more homes for sale. This is an astonishing decision.
I cannot think of another case in the country where a planning application has been turned down because the housing wasn’t expensive enough.”
