Norfolk homeless charity says social homes must be at heart of new house-building programme
The Government's announced it plans to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years
A homelessness charity in Norfolk's cautiously welcoming Government plans to build 1.5 million homes in England over the next five years but says more detail's needed.
It comes after deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced reforms to the planning system to try and boost the delivery of affordable and social homes.
"We've really struggled to build anything for a long time"
Dr Jan Sheldon is from St Martins in Norwich: "The reintroduction of mandatory housing targets for local authorities is great news, but we do need to make sure there's also targets in place for the building of new social homes.
"We know that we need 900,000 new social homes over the next ten years. What proportion of houses that Labour want to build over the next five years are going to be social homes? That's not clear at the moment and it's well documented that the housing crisis will only be solved by the delivery of a effective social homes programme.
"For years, we've really struggled to build anything for a long time due to the nutrient neutrality requirements. So my question to the Government would be, have they done the work with Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to look at how housing can impact the environment, but also looked at how some of these regulations can be reduced, so that we can get more houses built."