Housing targets are 'impossible', say councils

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner during a visit to a housing development in the Nightingale Quarter, Derby

A number of councils in Derbyshire have told the government their flagship policy to build 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years is "impossible" to achieve.

Local authorities across the county have raised concerns about the plan in a consultation exercise carried out by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner's housing department earlier this year.

The responses, obtained by the BBC through Freedom of Information requests, set up local authorities to potentially clash with their own party in government over one of their top priorities.

The government said the introduction of mandatory housing targets was in response to the "worst housing crisis in living memory".

Local authorities that took part in the consultation supported the principle of building more homes.

But in responses seen by the BBC, six Labour-run councils, the Conservative-controlled Derbyshire County Council and the Liberal Democrat-led coalition on Derbyshire Dales District Council, all cast doubt on how they could reach the targets.

These new-build homes in Kirk Langley were the first council houses built in Amber Valley since 2003

Amber Valley Borough Council, which has been Labour-run since 2023, said it supported the need to build more homes and improve affordability.

It added its own target in its Local Plan was 7,716 homes over an 18-year period.

The council said it was also making provision for "unmet needs" arising from Derby city for 1,320 homes.

But it added the new targets would result in 682 homes per year, compared to their own annual goal of 428 homes.

In their response, they said: "The industry has not achieved that level of delivery in the last 15 years.

"We are concerned that this will lead to planning by appeal which erodes confidence in the plan-led system."

A council in Derbyshire says its housing targets have doubled under new proposals

Labour-run Chesterfield Borough Council said it was "keen to play its role" in increasing housing delivery but this "cannot be achieved solely through identifying more land and then relying on the private sector to deliver them".

Conservative-run Derbyshire County Council added it would result in its housing requirements double from 2,300 to 4,600 a year.

"This will be extremely challenging, if not impossible," said the local authority.

Derbyshire Dales District Council added the methodology used to generate the targets was a "crude mechanism" for assessing the future needs of an area.

It added a "population-based forecast" would be more suitable.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “This is the worst housing crisis in living memory, and in order to fix this we need to build 1.5 million homes.

“That’s why we have introduced mandatory housing targets for councils and laid out clear plans to support their delivery, including by changing planning rules to allow homes to be built on grey belt land and recruiting 300 additional planning officers.”

Labour has warned it is willing to overrule local councils’ objections to achieve its aim of delivering 1.5 million homes by 2029