A SERIES of radical new housing policies intended to increase the supply of affordable housing have this week been warmly welcomed by West Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox.
The proposals have been devised by the Shadow Housing Minister MP Grant Shapps.
Mr Cox has consistently called for changes to the planning system and for the statutory adoption of special planning rules for Community Land Trusts.
The measures, outlined in a major new policy paper, include a scheme that will allow good tenants to move to other social sector properties. Villages and towns will be able to create entirely new community-led bodies with planning powers to develop local homes for local people, and provided there is strong community backing local people will have new powers to demand the selling of empty or under-used government property, and the scrapping of regional planning — enabling councils to revise their local plans and prevent the unwanted imposition of housing without adequate infrastructure.
Mr Cox said: 'Almost every week in my surgeries I hear from people who cannot find local housing to rent at prices they can pay on the incomes from local employment; the prospect of buying seems very distant indeed.'
He said there was a 'massive shortage' of affordable housing in West Devon and Torridge.
'Even when local communities try to provide more housing, they are often obstructed the Byzantine planning laws and centralised regional planning bodies. Regional spatial strategies and government planning guidelines are strangling the life out of rural communities, preventing sensible expansion even in villages where a need is established.
'These proposals are a breath of fresh air. We need to be letting local people make decisions for their own communities, removing the impediments, encouraging them to take the initiative, and giving them the freedom they need to decide what would suit their own communities best,' said Mr Cox.