THE government is determined to solve the housing crisis and wants local communities to help shape local development plans, according to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook.

He said, however, discussions would be about how new homes would be built and not whether they should be built.

Pennycook told GB News: “We are determined to tackle the housing crisis, to boost economic growth by meeting our plan for change milestone of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. But I would take issue with the fact that your assertion [is] that we’re just bypassing local communities.

“We want local communities involved early on with the production of local plans, because local plans, local development plans, are the best way for individual communities to shape development in their areas and to come to a view as to how housing should be developed and where it should go.

“But it does have to be a conversation about how and where it goes, rather than whether, whether it happens at all, and that’s because we’ve got an acute and entrenched housing crisis in England.

“And you will all know your viewers will know what that crisis means for people out there. It means 1.3 million people languishing on social housing waiting lists.

“It means a generation locked out of home ownership and, to our shame as a nation, it means nearly 160,000 homeless children will be living in temporary accommodation this Christmas. So the status quo is not sustainable.

“We won’t accept it. We are going to push local authorities across the country to help us get Britain building again, but we want that to be done via local plans. Which communities contribute to a large part of this plan.”

Asked about the new definition of grey belt land, he said: “So we put forward a definition of grey belt land in our consultation in July, and we’ll be announcing a final definition to the House of Commons later today.

“But what we are trying to get at with grey belt land is the fact that we know that there are lots of parcels of land within the green belt which are poorly performing, which are low quality. So they might be previously developed land. Maybe disused petrol stations, abandoned car parks, it might just be very low quality scrub land.

“What we’re saying to local areas is meet our mandatory higher housing targets in the first instance, try to do that through previously developed brownfield land.

“But where you can’t do that through brownfield land, yes, please review your green belt, please look to release from the Green Belt the most low quality, performing land so we can get those homes built.

“And really importantly, and I think this is something that we’ve got to really stress to communities out there, what we are saying is, when any land will be released through the green belt, we are going to ensure that golden rules apply, which will see more additional housing come forward on those sites, better infrastructure and better access to green and open space.

“So there’s a clear quid pro quo here for communities. If development has to come forward on the green belt, you will receive more public benefit from it. You can be more confident that the homes that will be built will meet local need, rather than being, for example, gated executive homes.”