黑洞社区

The former chief of staff to Theresa May has become the latest prominent Tory to criticise plans for a new formula designed to set local housing targets, saying it is 鈥渘ot consistent鈥� with the government鈥檚 levelling-up agenda.

Former housing minister Lord Barwell, who was the last prime minister鈥檚 chief adviser, told the Create Streets conference that the revised standard method for calculating housing need, published alongside the planning white paper in August, appeared likely to focus building on existing high demand areas at the expense of the north.

His intervention follows reports that a grouping of up to 70 Tory MPs are mobilising to force a government U-turn on the government鈥檚 approach, which former minister Harriet Baldwin last week described as 鈥淪talinist鈥�.

This comes after the Local Government Association last week launched a broadside against the plans, which it said would impose three-fold increases in housing numbers on some constituencies in the South-east, while plans for new homes in northern regions would fall below current levels of delivery.

Lord Barwell (pictured, right, with May), who was May鈥檚 chief of staff when the first version of a formula for calculating housing need was devised in 2017, said the then prime minister had wrangled with the Treasury over the formula, with the department keen to concentrate housing numbers where demand was highest.

Barwell said: 鈥淚f you follow that model, you are going to very heavily concentrate housing provision in London and the ring of local authorities immediately around London.

鈥淭heresa鈥檚 view was, 鈥榟ang on, my economic policy is all about trying to even up growth in this country, and provide better economic opportunities in the Midlands and the North, and surely housing policy should make a contribution to that?鈥欌��

He said the new formula, revealed in August, was 鈥渉eavily back鈥� in the Treasury鈥檚 camp 鈥� a move he questioned 鈥済iven, politically, how much the rhetoric of this government is so much about levelling up鈥�.

He said the new formula 鈥渨as not consistent, I felt, with the government鈥檚 overall policy message鈥�.

The LGA last week said that its modelling of the impact of the new formula showed that the requirement for homes would increase by 161% in greater London, 287% in Brighton and Hove, 294% in Dover and 194% in Tunbridge Wells.

In comparison, proposed housing targets for the north east would be 28% lower than the amount already being built, while the equivalent figure for the North west is 8% and in Yorkshire and the Humber 6%.

In addition, the LGA said growth will tend to be focused in rural rather than urban locations, with average growth compared to current formula of 59% in rural councils, compared to a 20% increase in major urban areas.