The Government Office for North-west England has said housebuilding in the area must be reduced if regeneration is to succeed.
The news follows recent concerns about the ability of the planning system in the North-west to spend adequately the £500m allotted for market renewal (HT 11 July, page 7).

The office's regional planning proposals are currently out for a three-month consultation. They include cutting the number of homes built by 50,000 – 15% – and possibly preventing any residential development on greenfield land.

The office believes a revised new-build target of 250,000 homes by 2016 is more compatible with attempts to rejuvenate inner-city areas that have emptied because of housebuilders providing new homes elsewhere.

Mike Morris, senior planning officer for the Government Office, said: "We need to tackle the entrenched areas of low housing demand. If these policies don't work, the whole regeneration of the North-west will fail."

He explained that the cut in the housing figures would be possible because the target for vacant properties – currently running in double figures in some areas – was being reduced to 3%.

This, plus not counting houses built in cleared areas towards the target, would allow 70% of building to be on brownfield land, he said.

The House Builders Federation responded with outrage to what it saw as "draconian targets".

Jim Johnsone, regional planner for the North-west, said: "It is fundamentally flawed that we should be forced to stop building homes, particularly when the public sector isn't building any more.

"Future planning should be about issues, not numbers. We need to look at the reality of inner cities rather than just penalise housebuilders for building homes that people want."