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Shadow housing secretary and deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, has said the party will work with the private sector to build “new towns”; the party aims to construct 1.5 million new homes over the next five years.
In a speech to the UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum in Leeds, she also stated that Labour would appoint a new towns taskforce of independent experts who will earmark sites for the first “new towns” before the end of its first year in power.
“A list of projects will be announced within our first 12 months of government, so we can start building the towns of the future within months, not decades,” she said.
“Developers who deliver on their obligations to build high quality, well designed and sustainable affordable housing, with green spaces and transport links and schools and GP surgeries nearby, will experience a new dawn under Labour. ”
“But those who have wriggled out of their responsibilities for too long will be robustly held to account.”
She also stated that Labour aims to deliver 40% affordable homes in a next generation of new towns.
The Shadow housing secretary and deputy Labour leader said Labour would include guaranteed new transport links and GP surgeries, and design codes that ensured buildings with local character in tree-lined streets.
She added: “The postwar period taught us that when the government plays a strategic role in house building, we can turbo-charge growth to the benefit of working people across Britain.”
