Plans to build three million new homes by 2020 should be reconsidered given the state of the property and financial markets, the Government has been told by an influential group of MPs.
Smaller homes?
The Government should slow down its house building programme, so that fewer new homes are constructed before 2015, with more coming on-stream later. Moves towards building larger homes should also be re-evaluated. The right balance between small and large homes may have changed given the difficulties in the property sector, said the House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee.
From 2016, all new homes are intended to be 'zero carbon' - not producing any net carbon emissions. The Environmental Audit Committee believes that building new homes at present is inappropriate given current market demand. A slow-down in the building programme would mean that more of the new homes that are to be built would necessarily be zero carbon.
Recycled homes
The Government is also being urged by the committee to require housebuilders to use a larger proportion of recycled materials. Once the zero carbon requirement is in place, its obligations should lead to more on-site electricity generation and use of large-scale district heating schemes, suggest the MPs.
There should also be a change in planning policy, to enable local authorities to reject planning applications on greenfield land where a fall in demand means that new homes are no longer required, says the committee. It adds that policy should also be strengthened to protect existing green belt land.
Fewer homes
"Government targets for house-building are intended to make homes more affordable by increasing supply," said Conservative MP Tim Yeo, the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. "But these ambitious targets were agreed in a time of economic optimism and easy credit.
"Clearly the assumptions on which the three million target was based must be reviewed in the current climate. This is an opportunity for the Government to place environmental concerns at the heart both of targets and planning regulations for new housing.
"The Government needs to ensure that in the current market downturn, an excess of land is not made available to developers, which could lead to greenfield land being developed in preference to brownfield. Once greenfield land is released for development, this land will be lost forever."