Plans published on July 30 show that 4,122 homes are expected to be built in the Buckinghamshire Council area each year. The government’s new target for the county is a marked increase of 42 per cent from the previous aim of 2,912 new homes per year. Buckinghamshire’s portion of new homes is part of the 370,000 homes the new government wants to build annually, instead of the current 305,000.
Announcing the news last week, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said the more ambitious homebuilding targets and planning reforms would ‘set us on our way to tackling the housing crisis’. However, Bucks Council leader Martin Tett has hit out at the government’s new targets. He told the Bucks Free Press: “Released just as many go on holiday it is no exaggeration to say that the changes to the planning system are cataclysmic for Buckinghamshire.
” The council boss said everyone understood the need for more new homes due to the country’s growing population, while pointing out that there was already ‘massive house building’ taking place in the north of the county around Aylesbury and Buckingham. He continued: “As we prepare our new Local Plan our policy has been ‘brown field first’, including reuse of redundant council office sites. “With a third of the county Green Belt and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty we have also argued that mathematical targets need to be modified to take this into account.
“The new proposals sweep all of that away. We now have non.