The Government has announced that ministers hope to build 1.5 million new homes across the country. Labour has said that the only way they plan to do this, is by overhauling planning rules. Part of this involves possibly building homes on the grey-belt, but what exactly is the grey-belt and how does it differ from the greenbelt?
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00:00Since these plans have been announced, we've been told that the government will help to
00:06subsidise development to the tune of three billion, only to run hard up against the fact
00:12that a, there are not sufficient trades available in the country to build that many homes in
00:18the time frame, which is a fundamental problem, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, but secondly,
00:25we've seen a decline in the number of residential sales compared to last year.
00:31So the problem is, is where is the market for these one and a half million homes?
00:35Who is going to buy them?
00:38We're still in the middle of an affordability crisis, I would argue.
00:41Interest rates have not fallen as fast as anybody would like.
00:44I mean, building on greenbelt, or what they now describe as greybelt, disused or unusable
00:51farmland or areas of natural beauty.
00:53I can understand that.
00:56The problem you have, frankly, is if you look deep into the golden rules, 50% of these homes
01:03are going to be affordable.
01:06They have to be in any development.
01:08So you're building 50% affordable homes on a disused car park, 15 miles outside a city
01:14centre.
01:16How are the people who are in those affordable homes, whether they own them or rent them,
01:21going to get to the jobs that they have to do?
01:26You should be building housing where the employment opportunities are.
01:30It's been reported that the head of Britain's largest house building company has said Labour's
01:35plans to build 1.5 million homes during this parliament is not achievable due to a severe
01:41skills shortage.
01:42When asked by the BBC, Barrett Redrow chief executive David Thomas said that the government
01:48would have to revolutionise the market, revolutionise planning, revolutionise methods of production
01:55to make their target achievable.