Tories says they hit the 1m new homes target – but did they?
Official figures suggest the Government and Housing Secretary Michael Gove have reached the 1 million target, although it has had to use EPC registrations as the measure.
The Government claims it has hit its target of one million new homes built during the past five years.
Its aim was to reach the figure during this Parliament before the General Election that will now take place on 4 July.
The annual target of 300,000 has been consistently missed, but now officials say the overall total has been achieved, with 1,001,000 new homes.
‘Best estimate’
They do admit that they have had to use ‘a best estimate’ to reach this conclusion as there is a time lag on gathering the data.
“To overcome these problems and develop a best estimate of housing delivery during the current Parliament” the number of EPC registrations has been used to back up the claim.
In January, official figures showed there was an 8% drop in new build starts in the year to the end of September.
Watered down
The Government’s target to build 300,000 new homes a year was watered down in 2022 when Housing Secretary Michael Gove (main picture) agreed to make it advisory rather than mandatory.
Instead, Gove, who is to stand down as an MP at the election, later challenged councils to meet their targets or face being named and shamed.
He also said that any local authorities which delayed legitimate planning applications could lose their powers.
Labour promise
Labour has promised to reverse Gove’s plans to boost housing supply ‘on day one’ of a new government.
And Liberal Democrat members rejected a move by the party’s leadership to abandon a housing target of 380,000 new homes every year.
