Property developers are finding it ‘significantly more difficult’ to get new houses built in areas controlled by Conservative politicians, new research reveals.
Lendy, the secured lending platform, has found areas with Conservative local authorities only granted 77% of requests for planning permission in the last year, whilst Labour granted 88% of requests in authorities they control.
All of the four worst local authorities for approval rate of planning permission have Conservative MPs and councils, with eight out of the bottom 20 located in the home counties of Surrey and Essex.
Lendy said it was in these South Eastern areas where the housing crisis was most acute and urged Tory MPs to put more pressure on local authorities to grant planning permission.
‘It is vital that MPs and politicians from all political parties do all they can to address the housing crisis, rather than providing obstacles for developers,’ said Liam Brooke, co-founder at Lendy.
‘Developers often struggle for funding for these important projects and are turning to non-traditional sources, such as P2P in order to fund them.
‘By blocking planning applications, councils are only providing another hurdle.
‘Politicians can be accused of letting Nimbyism to get out of control, as they allow housing projects to be halted due to the opinion of a vocal minority.
‘It is understandable that people would be opposed to large scale building projects on their door steps - but the overall costs to local area of a new development not going ahead can be very substantial in both social and economic terms.’
‘Progress towards closing the housing gap is desperately needed and the result of the general election could very well determine how the housing crisis will be addressed in the future,’ he added.
