Shadow Chancellor’s housing plans risk important countryside protections

CPRE has warned that the Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith’s proposed changes to housing and environmental policy could put important protections for the countryside at risk.

While we agree that new homes can cost too much and take too long to build, Andrew Griffith’s proposals to tackle this risks jeapardising important countryside protections. This is not the answer.

Scrapping the Future Homes Standard could mean new homes won’t be built with solar panels on their roofs, which increases the pressure for solar development on green fields instead. New homes should be warm, affordable to run and built in the right places. Decades of experience show that major developers will not deliver these outcomes without government intervention.

We welcome plans for a simpler infrastructure levy that gives local communities more power over where funding goes. However, cutting red tape alone will not solve the housing crisis. There are already hundreds of thousands of homes with planning permission that have yet to be built.

The proposals also include scrapping independent environmental agencies. This would undermine the ambition of the previous Conservative government’s own 25 Year Environment Plan, and risks weakening the protections that safeguard our countryside.