Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to build a host of new towns in the UK if his party wins the next election.
Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, the leader of the opposition used his speech to outline his vision for the developments, totalling 1.5 million homes over five years with schools and doctors’ surgeries “hardwired into plans”.
Starmer’s new towns plan would make use of “grey-belt” land – green-belt space deemed low-quality such as scrubland and car parks – to build Georgian-style townhouses and would operate through state-backed companies with compulsory purchase powers.
“No more land banking. No more inertia in the face of resistance,” Starmer told the conference. “A future must be built. That is the responsibility of serious government.”
The plan has historical echoes of the new developments built by Clement Atlee’s Labour government after the Second World War, including Harlow and Stevenage, as well as more recent new towns such as Welwyn Garden City.
“Sometimes the old Labour ideas are right for new times,” Starmer said.
What does the Labour new towns plan include?
In order to reach the goal of 1.5 million new homes, the Labour Party has set out a raft of measures including a “blitz of planning reform” and fast-track approval of urban brownfield developments, intended to allow faster house-building while “enhancing local voice on ‘how’ housing is built”.
Along with that, Starmer wants to enhance devolution to “unleash mayors”, giving them greater control over new housing developments in their regions.
Lastly, the plan includes a government-backed mortgage guarantee scheme and “first dibs for first-time buyers”, aiming to lessen the burden on young people – for whom Starmer described homeownership as “a luxury for the few”.
How will Starmer’s new towns affect house prices?
If the plans announced by Starmer come to pass, it is likely that they will go some way toward relieving the pressure faced by both buyers and renters in the UK.
Anthony Breach, senior analyst at Centre for Cities, previously told City Monitor that the government needs to enact “planning reforms that make the process of building homes and infrastructure more certain while limiting delays and bottlenecks.”
However, based on the announcement so far, it is unclear whether the 1.5 million homes announced at the conference – amounting to 300,000 per year – will be part of or in addition to the current national housing target of the same number. If the former, making up the difference from the current shortfall of around 80,000 per year would add up to substantially fewer total new homes than the promised 1.5 million.
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