But one planning insider, on the condition of anonymity, has dubbed these plans “naive” and fears Labour doesn’t understand how land markets work.
They said: “Labour thinks councils will be able to issue compulsory purchase orders for former greenbelt land at existing use price [minus its potential value, otherwise known as ‘hope value’].
“The reality is that a lot of land on the greenbelt may already have had options sold on it, or changed hands for more than the existing use value because of the potential for it being zoned for housing in future.”
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, passed last year, already allows Homes England and councils to use compulsory purchase orders – with the additional option of applying to the Levelling Up secretary for permission to remove a hope value. It is understood Labour might remove the need for permission.
Compulsory purchase orders have propped up parts of HS2, the UK’s yet-to-be-finished high-speed rail network, and helped build thousands of new homes in Sheffield city centre.
Though “protracted”, when compulsory purchase orders work they can be “demonstrably effective” according to Elizabeth Bundred Woodward, of Campaign to Protect Rural England.
But she added: “We would urge Labour to reform the Land Compensation Act and remove hope value entirely to help smaller community groups that focus on building more affordable homes in keeping with their villages.”
Georgian townhouses ‘a misnomer’
Starmer has vowed to not only deliver the numbers on housing, but also the quality. He has pledged to bring with him a new generation of new towns and Georgian-style housing in urban areas.
He would incentivise developers to build nicer-looking homes and get them “planning passports” in return to speed up development projects.
Ms Woodward said the promise of Georgian townhouses was “a bit of a misnomer”. “What Labour is effectively saying is it wants more high quality housing, something local communities are far more inclined to support,” she added.
In the Tories’ Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, the Government promised to legislate a set of “national development management policies” requiring developers to build to a nationally set code.
These policies, expected to cover design, heritage and national parks, have not yet been published. At present, councils sporadically include requirements in their local plans – but many are struggling to adopt these plans, paving the way for developers to build what they like.