House building on the green belt would be allowed under Labour, Keir Starmer declared today.
The party leader moved to ease the housing crisis by saying local areas would be handed powers to develop homes on the protected land where it would not undermine the countryside’s beauty.
Labour has already pledged to restore a target of building 300,000 houses a year following Rishi Sunak's decision in December to make it advisory rather than mandatory as he ducked a backbench Tory revolt.
Mr Starmer feared the target alone would be insufficient to meet housing demand and plans to allow building on green belt land - untouched areas around towns and cities that are undeveloped or set aside for farming to prevent urban sprawl.
"We would make those tough choices and say to local areas: notwithstanding that it is the green belt, if it is a car park or similar land which doesn't affect the beauty of our countryside, which we all want to preserve, then we'll change the planning rules, we'll give you the planning powers to do that,” he told the BBC.
He vowed to take on "vested interests" to unlock land for housing developments in a move he claimed could slash the cost of properties.
Across Britain, the average asking price for a first-time buyer home is a record £224,963, according to property website Rightmove.
"Developers and landowners actually have a vested interest in not building so many houses, because that keeps the price high,” said Mr Starmer.
"We want to change that model and make sure that many more houses are built and that the price comes down because, of course, what we want is good quality, secure houses, but also houses that people can afford."
The Centre for Cities’ think tank’s policy director Paul Swinney said: “One eighth of land in Britain is Green Belt and it is concentrated around cities.
“If we are not prepared to permit any new homes on the Green Belt at all, then it will be extremely difficult to build the volume of extra homes the UK needs
“The lack of quality housing in the right places imposes a limit on economic growth in cities, increases regional inequalities, corrodes social and intergenerational cohesion and forces people to live out of reach of public transport.
“We only need to build on a minute proportion of Green Belt land – and certainly not in areas with special environmental designations which exist for good reason – to make a substantial difference to people’s lives.”
Transport Minister Richard Holden accused the Labour leader of "flip-flopping" on green belt development, saying Mr Starmer argued against such a policy before this month’s) local elections.
However, Mr Holden "absolutely" accepted that more houses needed to be built and that targets had been missed.
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