Gove told an audience in central London he viewed the plans for a new urban quarter in Cambridge as his top priority on a list of schemes to kickstart housebuilding in urban areas.
The plans are the centrepiece of the Conservatives' commitment to build im homes during the course of this parliament, and formed a large part of Gove's most significant speech on housing since taking over at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
But ministers' lack of powers to force through schemes in the face of local opposition were highlighted by resistance from Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire.
Just half an hour before Gove was due to speak, Browne tweeted: "I will do everything I can to stop the government's nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding on Cambridge, where all major developments are now blocked by the Environment Agency because we have quite literally run out of water. Our streams, rivers and ponds already run dry."
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