The Government has announced a £18m fund to help ‘turbo-charge’ house building and provide thousands of new homes.
Councils can bid for their share of a ‘capacity fund’ to tackle planning problems which have caused a logjam in the government’s targets to build. The cash is aimed at speeding up the delivery of 800,000 new homes and infrastructure in a bid to boost housing supply.
Other measures unveiled today include the creation of six new ‘housing zones’ on brownfield sites, to provide an additional 10,000 homes, and funding for a new garden town in Shepway, Kent, to create 12,000 new homes.
Housing minister Gavin Barwell said: ‘We want to turbo-charge house building on large sites to get the homes built in the places people want to live, so that this country works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
‘These sites offer enormous potential to transform brownfield land into new homes and our £18m funding will help get them built much sooner.’
However, the measures have been dismissed by shadow housing secretary, John Healey, as inadequate after years of under investment. He said: ‘This is a drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed to deal with the housing crisis.
