The Government’s plan to build new towns will be “transformational” for the country, according to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook.
He said on GB News: “We have got to deal with a dire inheritance we were handed by the previous Conservative government. We’ve got to restore order to the asylum and immigration system and reduce net migration.
“But even if we didn’t have that challenge, we would still have to build many, many more homes of all tenures across the country because of decades of failure to build enough of them.
“That is why our plan for change includes an ambitious milestone of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. And as part of that plan, we want to bring forward the next generation of new towns across the country.
“We set up an independent expert task force last year to advise us on what were the best places for those new large scale new communities. That task force has made significant progress.
“It’s reporting on that progress today, as you say, 100 expressions of interest from all parts of the country, which shows the sort of enthusiasm I think that’s behind this transformational program.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello, he said: “We want to see spades on the ground on these new towns within this parliament.
“But we’re also announcing today further action we’re taking through our new homes accelerator, and that is an initiative designed to unblock and accelerate development on stored sites across the country, or sites that are not building out as fast as they could be.
“We’ve already seen through seven sites in that program the potential release of nearly 30,000 homes. We’ve unblocked a further 10,000…and we’ve announced three new sites today as part of that accelerator in Bristol, Scarborough and London.
“We are taking short term action to get homes delivered. But new towns, as you rightly say, will make a contribution in this Parliament, but they will really get going in future parliaments, and will make a significant difference to tackling the housing crisis in this country and boosting economic growth.”
On today’s GDP growth figures, he said: “We’re not satisfied with the figures that have been released this morning. I should point out there are some good indicators in there.
“Construction is up, for example, but we always knew that there was no silver bullet, no simple remedy to turning around 14 years of economic stagnation under the Conservatives.
“We had to, when on assuming office, ensure that the public finances were put on a sound footing to address that black hole we discovered on taking office, but we’ve been absolutely focused in the months since, on unblocking the various regulatory barriers that stand in the way of growth
“In my own area, for example, we’ve overhauled the national planning policy framework in December to ensure that it’s pro-growth, that it’s aligned to that plan for change, the 1.5 million new homes target. But there’s much more to do.
“We’ve got to go further and faster. That’s part of what today’s announcement is. We’re bringing forward a planning and infrastructure bill in the coming weeks that will help further streamline the delivery of new homes and new infrastructure.”
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