Government’s 300,000 home target ‘almost impossible’

The government’s pledge to build 300,000 homes a year is “almost impossible”, the industry has warned. Analysts and industry figures have said that labour and material shortages mean that reaching the target by the mid-2020s, as promised in the Conservative manifesto, is “looking increasingly unrealistic”. Some housing industry figures already believe that the government has been quietly moving away from the 300,000-home target since the election, especially following the shock Tory defeat in the Chesham and Amersham by-election, which many Conservative MPs blamed on plans to alter the planning system to encourage more housebuilding. Since then, the new communities secretary Michael Gove used the party’s conference last week to suggest that the government would be focusing on the North and Midlands, rather than easing demand in the South East. He has already paused the original planning reforms in the wake of the party backlash. The Guardian