Labour is right to build more houses - but must be mindful of its legacy

As it is in nature and architecture, so it is in planning – there is always a balance to be found.

The government’s proposals for the planning system represent the biggest shake-up since the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, at the dawn of the modern system of regulation.

There is no doubt about the need for a fresh approach, or about the dangers it carries with it. The combination of reimposing “top-down” housing targets on local authorities in England (the devolved administrations will go their own ways), the sheer scale of the ambition to build housing, and the use of central power to impose planning judgements on communities against their will, will create unprecedented political and social tensions.

Balancing the national interest and local feeling will be a formidable task.

There is, at least, consensus about the seriousness of the housing crisis. The opposition parties agree with the government that part of the solution to Britain’s lack of affordable homes is to increase the supply – and that means building more of them, one way or another. The target of 1.5 million for this parliament, at a rate of around 370,000 constructed per annum, is broadly accepted – and, as ministers frequently assert, was endorsed by the people at the general election.

The national democratic mandate for “change” in housing is clear, and it is rightly one of Sir Keir Starmer’s priorities. The Conservatives, rather quietly, seem to have dropped their longstanding opposition in principle to the targets they once decried as both undemocratic and disrespectful to countryside communities – not to mention damaging to precious landscapes and rural lifestyles.