She promised her government would build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, as pledged in Labour’s election manifesto.
The party is set to reintroduce compulsory housebuilding targets, encourage development of poor-quality areas in the green belt known as ‘grey belt’ land, and make extra funds available for hundreds of new planning officers.
Speaking to business leaders at the Treasury on Monday, Reeves promised to focus on kickstarting economic growth in part by overhauling the planning system to speed up the delivery of more housing.
However, Reeves warned that this was not a “green light” to any kind of housing development, and that the right “mix” of affordable housing and homes for social rent would be built.
She said: “The deputy prime minister will take an interventionist approach to make sure that we have got the housing mix that our country needs, that our people need.”
She added that the government will also ask the transport and energy secretaries to prioritise decisions on “infrastructure projects that have been sitting unresolved for far too long”.
The government has already started work on its housing pledges by giving the go ahead to build 14,000 new homes across Liverpool Central Docks, Worcester, Northstowe and Langley Sutton Coldfield.
Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, said: “It is encouraging to see that the new UK government is committed to reforming the planning system and delivering thousands of new affordable homes each year. Propertymark is keen to see a diverse mix of housing delivered that keeps pace with real-world demand.
“Fine details about reform to the National Policy Planning Framework must be mapped out and open to full stakeholder scrutiny. It’s crucial there is transparency on how they intend to meet their ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes by the end of its term in government, which in reality would mean having a large housing estate built every day before the next general election.
“Whilst we support more homes being constructed, there needs to be careful consideration on background infrastructure to ensure we are making the best use of available land, ideally prioritising a brownfield-first approach.”
In 2019 the Conservative government pledged to build 300,000 new homes a year, with mandatory building targets for all local authorities. But that was scrapped in December 2023 and the promise watered down following concerns house building could damage local areas.
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