It must boost home ownership in order to foster a new generation of Tories, but this risks alienating millions of its existing voters who do not want to see their towns and villages balloon in size.
Dozens of Conservative-run councils are axing local house building plans to appease their core voters ahead of the local elections. Nearly all of the land (98pc) where local plans have been abandoned is in Tory parliamentary constituencies, new research shows.
Almost half of all constituencies – 254 out of 533 – are affected, according to analysis by estate agents Knight Frank and the Home Builders Federation, a trade body.
On a national level, Conservative ministers have dropped formal targets to build 300,000 new homes a year. Steve Turner, of the Home Builders Federation, accused the Government of caving to pressure from “Nimby MPs” and “seemingly shoring up its core vote: older voters who already own their own homes”.
“If you look at where all the local plans have been taken out or paused, the majority of them are in the South East where we know there’s the greatest demand, but we also know there’s the greatest pressure against more development from local communities,” he says.
Some 55 local authorities have ditched or paused their local plans, which designate land for development, with more expected to follow suit in the coming months as the Conservatives gear up for a general election next year.
Tory-run authorities are typically the battlegrounds for these disagreements. Among councils that have suspended their development plans, which outline how they will meet demand for new homes, 31 are controlled by the Conservatives. Six are run by Labour, nine by the Liberal Democrats, and the rest have joint or independent control.
Councils were previously incentivised to have local plans because they allowed them to block inappropriate planning applications. Those without local plans used to have new developments forced through by central Government – but this has changed since mandatory targets were axed.
Clive Betts, a Labour MP and chair of the Housing Select Committee, called the abandonment of mandatory targets a “disaster”.
“We are in a housing crisis – we have a massive shortage of houses in this country,” he says.
Betts says the Government was trying to “appease some in the rural southern counties who feel their building targets are too high”. But this has meant that numbers have been added to major cities in a way that is unsustainable, he warned.
The housing and planning minister, Rachel Maclean, will be grilled by the Committee on Monday as part of an inquiry into the Government’s planning reforms.
​
**Conservative wealth at risk**
The Conservative Party faces an uphill battle of delivering more homes without causing unrest among its older home-owning vote, who do not want to see the value of their wealth eroded by unsightly new builds nearby.
Voters in safe Conservative seats have more wealth in property, are more likely to own their homes outright and are less likely to be renters.
The average house price in Conservative constituencies outside of London is £346,77, which is 48pc more than in Labour constituencies, where the average price is £234,861.
However major building programmes in Tory strongholds could ultimately depress house prices, experts warned.
Ben Everitt, a Conservative MP on the Housing Select Committee, says communities have valid concerns about “massive identikit housing estates” and other forms of development that may not be appropriate for their areas.
His views were echoed by Michael Gove, who last week blocked a development on a greenfield site in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, because of its “generic” design – even though it had been approved by the local council.
Lucian Cook, of Savills estate agents, says the Conservative Party is facing a “critical balancing act”.
“On the one hand, it wants to stimulate homeownership among younger generations through housebuilding,” he says. “But, on the other, it wants to minimise the disquiet among its core older, wealthier homeowning vote. Labour doesn’t face the same dilemma.”
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says: “Our target of building 300,000 new homes a year remains and we are investing £11.5bn to build more of the genuinely affordable homes the country needs.
“We know we need to deliver more homes which is why we’re introducing the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which will speed up the planning system and put power in the hands of communities.”
I mean they sort of *could* but it would rely on a deadly pandemic and even less care for the population… supply and demand.
Interesting to see the Telegraph saying the quiet part out loud.
The tories rely on propping up house prices above all else
Great that this might eventually come back to bite them
(And yes I know labour presided over high house price growth in their last stint in power)
capitalists these days be like “you want to own your own home? shut it, you communist.”
the party of big business, and land lords, not being able to fix the housing situation, no shit.
Is the follow up to this to article “grass is green”?
Alternative take. Tory’s won’t solve the housing crisis because most voters don’t want them to. If they did they would vote for someone else. They don’t, they vote Tory.. so here we are moaning in our little echo chamber again. I’m starting to lose sympathy.
NIMBY’s….
Thank you for coming to my ted talk…
Will be the same for Labour too, unless they upzone exclusive Tory seats in the south they’d never win anyway
>Dozens of Conservative-run councils are axing local house building plans to appease their core voters ahead of the local elections.
There is nothing wrong in building more houses, but if they do it in a way to build as many little flats as possible, without adding any infrastructure, schools, shops, medical centres, public transport then any sensible person would object to that.
In my area they build a lot of these investment flats and they are empty – typically snapped by foreign investors as a store of value, as they are not actually meant for people to live in them.
New New Towns might be a solution. They can be on greenfield sites away from NIMBYs. I don’t see anything that big happening.
They don’t want to fix the problem, you can’t give too many people financial freedom the house of cards will come crashing down
No party of any persuasion has done anything since the 80’s to make anything other than token gestures
11 comments
The Conservative party is facing a major problem.
It must boost home ownership in order to foster a new generation of Tories, but this risks alienating millions of its existing voters who do not want to see their towns and villages balloon in size.
Dozens of Conservative-run councils are axing local house building plans to appease their core voters ahead of the local elections. Nearly all of the land (98pc) where local plans have been abandoned is in Tory parliamentary constituencies, new research shows.
Almost half of all constituencies – 254 out of 533 – are affected, according to analysis by estate agents Knight Frank and the Home Builders Federation, a trade body.
On a national level, Conservative ministers have dropped formal targets to build 300,000 new homes a year. Steve Turner, of the Home Builders Federation, accused the Government of caving to pressure from “Nimby MPs” and “seemingly shoring up its core vote: older voters who already own their own homes”.
“If you look at where all the local plans have been taken out or paused, the majority of them are in the South East where we know there’s the greatest demand, but we also know there’s the greatest pressure against more development from local communities,” he says.
Some 55 local authorities have ditched or paused their local plans, which designate land for development, with more expected to follow suit in the coming months as the Conservatives gear up for a general election next year.
Tory-run authorities are typically the battlegrounds for these disagreements. Among councils that have suspended their development plans, which outline how they will meet demand for new homes, 31 are controlled by the Conservatives. Six are run by Labour, nine by the Liberal Democrats, and the rest have joint or independent control.
Councils were previously incentivised to have local plans because they allowed them to block inappropriate planning applications. Those without local plans used to have new developments forced through by central Government – but this has changed since mandatory targets were axed.
Clive Betts, a Labour MP and chair of the Housing Select Committee, called the abandonment of mandatory targets a “disaster”.
“We are in a housing crisis – we have a massive shortage of houses in this country,” he says.
Betts says the Government was trying to “appease some in the rural southern counties who feel their building targets are too high”. But this has meant that numbers have been added to major cities in a way that is unsustainable, he warned.
The housing and planning minister, Rachel Maclean, will be grilled by the Committee on Monday as part of an inquiry into the Government’s planning reforms.
​
**Conservative wealth at risk**
The Conservative Party faces an uphill battle of delivering more homes without causing unrest among its older home-owning vote, who do not want to see the value of their wealth eroded by unsightly new builds nearby.
Voters in safe Conservative seats have more wealth in property, are more likely to own their homes outright and are less likely to be renters.
The average house price in Conservative constituencies outside of London is £346,77, which is 48pc more than in Labour constituencies, where the average price is £234,861.
However major building programmes in Tory strongholds could ultimately depress house prices, experts warned.
Ben Everitt, a Conservative MP on the Housing Select Committee, says communities have valid concerns about “massive identikit housing estates” and other forms of development that may not be appropriate for their areas.
His views were echoed by Michael Gove, who last week blocked a development on a greenfield site in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, because of its “generic” design – even though it had been approved by the local council.
Lucian Cook, of Savills estate agents, says the Conservative Party is facing a “critical balancing act”.
“On the one hand, it wants to stimulate homeownership among younger generations through housebuilding,” he says. “But, on the other, it wants to minimise the disquiet among its core older, wealthier homeowning vote. Labour doesn’t face the same dilemma.”
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says: “Our target of building 300,000 new homes a year remains and we are investing £11.5bn to build more of the genuinely affordable homes the country needs.
“We know we need to deliver more homes which is why we’re introducing the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which will speed up the planning system and put power in the hands of communities.”
I mean they sort of *could* but it would rely on a deadly pandemic and even less care for the population… supply and demand.
Interesting to see the Telegraph saying the quiet part out loud.
The tories rely on propping up house prices above all else
Great that this might eventually come back to bite them
(And yes I know labour presided over high house price growth in their last stint in power)
capitalists these days be like “you want to own your own home? shut it, you communist.”
the party of big business, and land lords, not being able to fix the housing situation, no shit.
Is the follow up to this to article “grass is green”?
Alternative take. Tory’s won’t solve the housing crisis because most voters don’t want them to. If they did they would vote for someone else. They don’t, they vote Tory.. so here we are moaning in our little echo chamber again. I’m starting to lose sympathy.
NIMBY’s….
Thank you for coming to my ted talk…
Will be the same for Labour too, unless they upzone exclusive Tory seats in the south they’d never win anyway
>Dozens of Conservative-run councils are axing local house building plans to appease their core voters ahead of the local elections.
There is nothing wrong in building more houses, but if they do it in a way to build as many little flats as possible, without adding any infrastructure, schools, shops, medical centres, public transport then any sensible person would object to that.
In my area they build a lot of these investment flats and they are empty – typically snapped by foreign investors as a store of value, as they are not actually meant for people to live in them.
New New Towns might be a solution. They can be on greenfield sites away from NIMBYs. I don’t see anything that big happening.
They don’t want to fix the problem, you can’t give too many people financial freedom the house of cards will come crashing down
No party of any persuasion has done anything since the 80’s to make anything other than token gestures