Michael Gove threatens action against English councils over housing plans

Michael Gove will threaten to take action against councils that miss deadlines to submit their housing plans in a speech on Tuesday designed to highlight the government’s commitment to build new homes across England.

The housing secretary will say he will “call out” local authorities that fail to publish their future development plans with a threat to intervene if necessary.

However, Gove will also confirm that the government is watering down housing targets, a move that industry sources said will have a dampening effect on building across the country.

A source at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “We have been clear that the government is on the side of the builders and not the blockers – councils must play their part and deliver the homes this country needs, without concreting over the countryside.

“The housing secretary has already told councils that they need to step up, and we are providing a lot of support to help them do so – so those that continue to drag their feet can expect to face government intervention.”

Gove’s speech caps a year-long consultation into the government’s national planning policy framework, which Gove hoped would kickstart housebuilding in England but which he has had to rewrite under heavy pressure from backbench Conservative MPs.

The framework, which is being published in full on Tuesday, will confirm that the government will allow local authorities not to use a population-based formula to set their multi-year housing plans. Instead, they will be able set far lower housebuilding targets if they can argue that sticking to the formula would have changed the character of an area or necessitated building on greenbelt land.

Ministers are already struggling to hit their target of building 300,000 new homes a year, and experts warn that watering down the local targets will lead to new housebuilding dropping to its lowest point since the second world war.

Gove first proposed the changes last year after a group of Tory MPs led by Theresa Villiers campaigned for them, threatening to amend the levelling up bill if they were not adopted. The housing secretary will confirm on Tuesday that Villiers’ long campaign has been successful.

Since Gove proposed the changes last year, about 60 local authorities have delayed, cancelled or watered down their plans, with many directly blaming the uncertainty around the government’s planning policy.

Labour has seized on the issue, with Keir Starmer promising to make his party the “builders, not the blockers”, even if that means allowing development on green belt land.

Gove will aim to bring an end to the delays, threatening action against authorities that continue to hold out.

Officials said they had already committed £42.5m to help tackle planning backlogs and speed up decision making. The extra money has not yet resulted in a development boom, however. Government figures published last month show that 234,400 additional dwellings were added to England’s housing stock in 2022-23 – almost exactly the same number as the previous year.