Housing: Construction

(asked on 22nd March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will provide each local authority with an assessment of the specific housing challenges in that area to help better inform decisions on local housing development programmes.


Answered by
Stuart Andrew Portrait
Stuart Andrew
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This question was answered on 30th March 2022

Throughout its work the Department seeks to better understand the differing housing needs and challenges of local areas both through close engagement with local areas and monitoring relevant data, in line with our Levelling Up White Paper commitments. In keeping with our commitment to empower local leadership we will continue to give local leaders the tools and powers to respond to local needs.

One of the ways in which local authorities can respond to these challenges themselves is by building homes directly. The Government has given local authorities a comprehensive range of tools to enable them to deliver council housing. This includes our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme and the abolition of Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing cap in 2018. Local authorities have also been given more freedom on how they can spend the money they receive from Right to Buy sales on replacement homes.

The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that it is for local authorities to identify the size, type and tenure of housing needed for different groups in the community and to reflect this in their local planning policies. The different groups include, but is not limited to, those who require affordable housing, families with children, older people, students, people with disabilities, service families, travellers, people who rent their homes and people wishing to commission or build their own homes.

As set out in the Levelling Up White Paper, the changes we are making to the planning system will result in more communities having local plans in place, which clearly set out what is required to meet community housing needs.

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