Exclusive:
Labour has vowed to turn the tide on years of stagnant building under the Tories as we can reveal members of Kemi Badenoch’s housing team opposed major building projects
Kemi Badenoch’s housing team tried to block more than 3,000 new homes over the last Parliament, damning research shows.
Shadow Housing Ministers David Simmonds and Paul Holmes tried to scupper major building projects in their own constituencies. Labour has vowed to turn the tide on years of stagnant building under the Tories as Keir Starmer promises to slash red tape and overrule bureaucratic planning processes.
Mr Holmes, the Tory MP for Hamble Valley, in the South East, has repeatedly attempted to block the building of 2,500 homes in his constituency and has criticised overdevelopment in his area. In August he opposed a plan to build six houses on a patch of land next to a pub car park. Elsewhere, Mr Holmes pushed back against changes to housing targets over fears of more building projects in his community.
Meanwhile, Mr Simmonds, the MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, in London, tried to block 514 homes at a residential site in Hillingdon at the former Master Brewer site. He opposed the proposals to “ensure that our landscape will not be blighted by over-development”.
Tory leader Ms Badenoch herself celebrated unchanged housing targets in her area as they would mean “less house building across the constituency” on social media in 2021. And Shadow Housing Secretary Kevin Hollinrake in 2022 responded, “Good advice”, to an article suggesting young people could afford to get on the property ladder if they looked at cheaper areas and gave up gym memberships and holidays abroad.
The former Tory government pledged to build 300,000 new homes a year in the party’s 2019 general election manifesto. But just under 235,000 were built in 2022-23 and 2021-22.
This week, Labour set an ambitious target to build 1.5million homes as part of the government’s Plan for Change. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook described the pledge as “stretching but achievable”. “The previous government built just shy of a million homes in the last Parliament, we could have picked a million-home target – that wouldn’t have been enough to pull us out of the acute and entrenched housing crisis that England is in the grip of,” he said.
“I think we’ve got a duty to the country to try and tackle the housing crisis, to boost economic growth, and that stretching but achievable, 1.5-million target is the way to do that.” He admitted the shortage of construction workers is one of the “big challenges” ministers face in hitting the target.
It comes as the government also confirmed it would overhaul the planning process to speed decision-making.
A Labour spokeswoman said: “The Conservatives’ miserable housebuilding record has resulted in soaring rents, unaffordable housing, and rising homelessness. They’ve clearly learned nothing and are intent on remaining a party for the blockers, not the builders.”
Mr Holmes said he objected to the 2,500-house project due to the Lib Dem council having borrowed hundreds millions of pounds for it. He added: “I’ve criticised Labour’s approach which reduces targets in Labour areas and increases them in Tory areas. I’ve opposed housing in my constituency which is unsuitable for the local area. My council has already built double the targets required.”
Mr Simmonds said: “I have supported development at the Master Brewer site (which was my first home in Hillingdon) including when I chaired the planning committee at LB Hillingdon 25 years ago, but there comes a point when repeated applications reach the overdeveloped stage and at that point I have a duty to constituents to reflect their concerns.”
