Tories will build more homes says Shapps

A future Tory government would aim to build far more homes than achieved by the Labour administration over the past decade, according to shadow housing minister Grant Shapps.

Shapps said the expansion of housebuilding would be achieved through scrapping the system of government-imposed build numbers on local councils and central targets on housing density.

In one of the most unequivocal statements of Tory support for housing growth so far on record, Shapps said: "We have a large population and too little housing. It's a s simple as that. We can mess about with whatever schemes of making some housing affordable or intermediate, but fundamentally we have a choice – either to reduce population or build more homes."

However, he said that the Labour government's approach of "railroading through" housing targets had failed to see more homes built in the last ten years. He claimed that Labour had built on average 30,000 less homes a year than under the previous Tory administration.

He said this could be changed by abolishing regional targets, along with the associated regional quangos, and allowing councils to keep the benefits of new development for the local community. "We need to turn it around. At the moment the people who benefit most from new development are the new residents moving in. We need to make it so the first people who benefit are the existing residents."

This would be achieved by allowing councils to keep any new council tax revenue raised by new residents. Powers for regional plan-making would be handed down to local authorities or groups of local authorities, from Regional Development Agencies. The RDAs would then play a far reduced role.

Shapps also said the party would scrap the government's minimum density requirement of 30 homes per hectare, which he said had contributed to a massive oversupply one and two bedroom flats, helping the housing downturn. "I think its insane building houses half the size of the 1930s. I think at the local level it's where people need to come to serious decisions about the appropriate density of homes in their area.

Adam Sampson, chief executive of housing charity Shelter welcomed Shapps' commitment to buiding more homes. He said: "It is wonderful to hear government talk about housing in this way. The credit crunch is partly the result of a sustained failure in housing policy over 20 years which allowed a speculative bubble to develop."

However Dan Bridgett, public affairs director for Barratt Homes, questioned how it would work in practice. He said: "The shortage of housing is principally in London and the South East, and one of the key criteria of that is the preponderance of conservative Councils in those areas elected on anti-development tickets. Are we content for there to be no new development in Conservative controlled areas or not?"