Starmer’s Plan for Change doubles down on 1.5m housing goal
“What is the point of setting a target that you can deliver without bold action?” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told an audience at Pinewood Studios on Thursday after recommitting to his pre-election promise to build 1.5m homes.
Starmer’s speech came as his government released its Plan for Change, a series of “missions” it will aim to achieve by 2030.
Most of these will be familiar to readers of the Labour Party’s manifesto and post-election speeches.
The plan includes building 1.5m homes in England, publishing a new National Planning Policy Framework before the end of the year, fast-tracking planning decisions on 150 major infrastructure schemes, and having the country run on 95% clean energy. The Budget promise to bolster the Affordable Homes Programme by £500m got a mention.
There is a little more detail regarding timeframes for some initiatives. A 10-year strategy for housing and infrastructure delivery will come out next spring. These will include, in the words of the government, “clear priorities, plans to deliver, and a pipeline of projects for investors and supply chains”.
Building upon the NPPF’s pre-year-end release, the government promised to update all relevant national policy statements by next summer.
A “forthcoming” Clean Power 2030 Action Plan will detail reforms for the planning system in regards to infrastructure as well as “building the grid”.
In more vague terms, the Plan for Change includes a promise to modernise planning committees and increase capacity at a local planning department level.
Such planning reform will be critical to getting even close to the 1.5m homes target. Data from Centre for Cities shows that Whitehall will fall 388,000 homes short of its goal is no changes to the planning system are made.
Starmer said he was aware of the naysayers. He told the crowd Thursday that he knew cynics would declare his goals unachievable, but he was not bothered.
He said: “You choose change, not because it’s easy but because it’s hard.”
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