Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has defended her Department’s approach to ‘unblocking’ sites in the south east on the BBC, following approving a development of 165 homes in Cranbrook, Kent, on a former Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
She told the BBC that the south east, and in particular Sussex, Surrey and Kent did not just consist of “rolling hills,” and that “there is lots of brownfield, lots of areas that need to be unlocked for development.”
She added: “Developers who have got land there are frustrated that they are constantly being blocked, so what we want to do is unlock those sites and get those houses built.”
The Kent Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) described the Cranbrook development, previously refused by Conservative councillors, as “a political signal that the countryside is fair game for developers.” Under new proposed housebuilding targets, authorities in Kent, Sussex and Surrey will have to build an additional 7,116 homes a year on top of existing targets. The Surrey CPRE said this will mean a “tsunami” of development on the county’s green belt.
Rayner reiterated the Government’s aim to “build on brownfield sites first,” as the Department of Housing prepared to produce a response to the current consultation on reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework.
She said concerns about protecting environment and nature would be taken into account; “National parks and heritage sites are all excluded and within the National Planning Policy Framework it clearly sets out what our rules are and it also talks about brownfield first.”
She added that it will be local authorities’ decision where to place new developments: “With local plans and mandatory targets it means local areas will identify the areas of land that they believe is where the houses should go and the infrastructure, and we will help deliver it.”
This week Prime Minister Keir Starmer reaffirmed the Government’s committment to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament, admitting that there would be “no solution to the housing crisis without approving controversial development.”