Parties divided on compulsory housing targets

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have made their housing targets mandatory

The housing crisis is one of the burning political issues of our time with all the big parties committing to building significant numbers of new houses.

Labour has said it would build 1.5m houses in the next Parliament, the Conservatives 1.6m and the Liberal Democrats 1.9m.

But there is a big divide in terms of how this would be achieved.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have pledged to make these targets mandatory, while the Conservatives have not.

This new housing development in Bodmin will include 175 new homes with 25% listed as affordable

Dig a bit deeper and you find significant disagreements within the both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats as to whether their parties are taking the right approach.

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government was committed to mandatory targets but these were ditched when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.

When mandatory targets were scrapped many senior Conservatives – including recent Housing Secretaries – were highly critical and said it risked betraying young people struggling to find housing.

But Cherilyn Mackrory, Conservative candidate for Truro and Falmouth, said it was her belief that "local authorities should have more of a say where those houses go and how many".

The Liberal Democrat leadership, meanwhile, twice attempted to scrap their commitment to mandatory targets.

But the party’s membership, voting on the issue at their annual conference, insisted it remain – with the Young Liberals leading the charge to protect it.

'Local say'

Liberal Democrat candidate for South Devon Caroline Voaden, who had once argued to get rid of the policy, told BBC Politics South West that it was "useful to have a target".

She added her party would introduce a "compulsory national target but there does have to be local say in what is needed".

Proponents of targets say they are necessary to make sure councils build the number of houses required.

Opponents, though, say the mandatory approach has been tried unsuccessfully for decades and it risks forcing development on green fields sites against the wishes of locals.

This development in Calstock was moth-balled when developers could no longer provide the agreed number of affordable homes

Labour is being robust about its determination to overrule local objections if it deems that necessary.

Labour candidate for Plymouth Moor View Fred Thomas said his party would "reform the planning process" to reach its goal of building 1.5m homes nationally.

"What we know is for people in any area to have the housing, to live and have a roof over their head, we must build more houses," he said.

"That is the hard fact of the matter and Labour is going to build more houses."

Reform UK said it would “unleash house-building across the country, prioritising local people and those who have paid into the system for social housing”.

The Green Party said it would provide 150,000 new social homes a year and end the right to buy for social house tenants.

Green Party candidate for South West Devon Lauren McLay said this would not be a compulsory target and would instead be a "build and acquire" strategy, taking into account the numerous empty homes across the UK.