Following the Conservative Party Conference, Gavin Barwell has given us more detail on £2 billion Accelerated Construction Policy.

Gavin Barwell has announced that to encourage SME builders to develop large public owned sites under the new Accelerated Construction policy, the sites will be divided up in to smaller plots. Communities secretary Sajid Javid has also announced a £2 billion extra borrowing to fast track the construction of thousands of homes on Brownfield sites, he called it the "largest state-backed" housing programme in decades.

Barwell has said of the plans that the government would not be taking its traditional approach of selling off large chunks of land to the highest bidder.

Barwell said: “Historically, large parcels of land have been sold to a developer. The Accelerated Construction idea is us getting actively involved in breaking the site up and using the release of that land to bring in a wider range of developers.”

He added that by providing a larger pipeline of sites would also give smaller developers an incentive to embrace off-site construction.

Barwell said that the government’s commitment was to provide 160,000 homes on its own sites by 2020 with councils matching this figure.

Them minister however did acknowledge that much of the land on the Whitehall list of potential housing sites was “quite complex” to deliver, such as MoD bases that are still in operational use. There are “difficult issues that shouldn’t be overlooked.”

Barwell vows to also stop councils from "passing the buck" on difficult decisions about housing by allowing applications to be called in.

“Applications should only be called in where they raise issues of national significance. I want a local planning system and my role is to insist that every single council doesn’t duck its hard decisions of meeting needs in its area. How they do it is up to them but i will not allow them to duck the decision.”

David Montague, chief executive of registered social landlord London & Quadrant has welcomed Javid’s announcement saying : “These announcements recogise the vital role of government investment in land and investing in new entrants to the market. We are most excited about the tone of determination and ambition that is shared by housing associations.”

Author: Lauren Angell, Event Manager, CPT Events

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