A YORK housing chief has hit out at Michael Gove saying he is blocking house building in the city.

Mr Gove, the UK government’s housing secretary, said his new planning reforms would increase the supply of new homes. He said he would name and shame councils that failed to hit their building targets and if they delayed or rejected legitimate applications, they could lose their planning powers. 

But City of York Council’s Cllr Michael Pavlovic, executive member for housing and planning, said: “Michael Gove and this Conservative government is backing the blockers to building the new housing the country needs, and the blockers are Conservative MPs.  

“His tough talk to councils is misplaced when the real problem is one of the Conservatives’ own making.  

“The mismatch between Conservative announcements and what is happening on the ground is evident with a record of failure to meet their own annual housing targets.  

“As we head towards a general election, it’s clear Labour is the only party that will stick to its promises to build 300,000 homes a year and give hope to the next generation of homeowners and renters.”

In the Conservative Party manifesto in 2019, it set out a housing target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.

In 2021/22, the government built 232,820 net additional dwellings, but the average over the last ten years is 178,228, according to the Building Cost Information Service.

Approximately 90 per cent of the net additions are new-builds, so to meet the 300,000 target the government would need to build 270,000 new homes per year.

The last time anywhere near 270,000 houses were built was in the 1970s when an average of 260,000 homes were built a year across the decade.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has vowed to reverse Mr Gove’s reforms if it entered government next year.  However, Darren Rodwell, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, defended Mr Gove’s action on housing targets.

He told Inside Housing: “We are pleased the government has confirmed that housing targets will become an advisory starting point which will take into account local circumstances.

“The reality is that planning is not a barrier to housebuilding.  “Nine in 10 planning applications are approved by councils, despite significant resourcing and capacity issues across the country.”

Housebuilding is a historic problem in York.  Council officers published a document in November that said 592 new affordable homes need to be built each year.

However, the accumulated number of affordable housing completions in York over the last five years is 648.

York Labour campaigned to build 100 per cent affordable housing on council-owned land, and has projects at Ordnance Lane, in Fulford, and Willow House, off Walmgate.  One hundred homes are set to be built in Ordnance Lane next year, while work on 40 new homes is set to start in 2025 at the Willow House site.

The leader of the City of York Council, Coun Claire Douglas, has made affordable housebuilding one of her administration’s flagship policies.   Last month she said: “We committed to putting 100 per cent affordable housing on council-owned land because – surprise, surprise – if we as a local authority are not doing it, nobody else is doing it.

“Our city needs affordable housing.

“We have to find ways of doing it and working internally on how we deliver our housing is really important.”