Black Country Plan could be 'reworked' under new government housing strategy

Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke MP is preparing to unveil plans to "unlock the housebuilding conundrum" in a major speech in Parliament in the coming weeks.

He has vowed end the "top down imposition of targets" on local authorities and told the Star that following his intervention some local housing plans "may want to be reworked".

His comments come after the BCP – which has lined up more than 76,000 homes in the region over the next 15 years, including thousands on the green belt – was thrown into turmoil after Dudley Council pulled out.

Mr Clarke spoke to the Express & Star on his first day working from his new office at the Levelling Up department's regional headquarters at Wolverhampton's i9 building.

On house building he said: "Because we've had our fingers burnt on this issue before we're rather shied away from it. We have to resolve the fact that this country doesn't build enough of the homes we need where we need them.

"There's a lot of angst, and quite reasonably so, in places like the West Midlands about very high targets being imposed on communities.

"So we've made it very clear we're going to scrap the top down imposition of targets, but what we don't want to do in doing that is step away from the fact that we need to build the homes this country needs."

He conceded the new strategy "could at its worst risk becoming contradictory". "We're scrapping targets but we maintain a very high level of ambition," he said.

"We're really clear that we want to make it so communities have the right incentives and support to build well without needing this often very controversial and damaging top down targets culture.

"So the targets will go, but the level of ambition remains."

Mr Clarke said the country would need to build "in the territory of 300,000 homes a year" – a long-standing government target – in order to address the "undoubted unfairnesses" in the housing market.

He said the Government's 'brownfield first' approach remained unchanged and that green belt development should always be a last resort.

On local housing plans, he said: "Some may want to be reworked, but the main thing is that we provide clarity quickly so we don't end up with a period whereby lots of home building gets frustrated precisely because there isn't clarity from the top.

"I hope to give the house building community the confidence it needs to press ahead. We've become a country where too many people just see house building as bad thing, and that's crazy.

"It is economically vital and socially just that we build the homes that we need. We can't shy away from that because it is politically contentious."

Dudley Council announced it had pulled out of the BCP last week, citing public opposition to plans to build homes on green belt sites in the borough.