Labour promises 1.5 million new homes

Speaking at the Labour party conference, Sir Keir Starmer outlined the party's ideas to meet its target by unlocking more brownfield land, building new towns and bulldozing through the current planning laws.

Those were the actions covered in Mr Starmer's speech, but the labour Party's website offers a more detailed list -

A housing recovery plan

- a blitz of planning reform to quickly boost housebuilding to buy and rent and deliver the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation, enhancing local voice on 'how' housing is built with communities confident plans will be delivered.

The next generation of new towns

- new communities with beautiful homes, green spaces, reliable transport links and thriving high streets.

Unleashing Mayors

- a package of devolution to Mayors, with stronger powers over planning and control over housing investment.

'Planning Passport' for urban brownfield development

- with fast track approval and delivery of high density housing on urban brownfield sites.

First dibs for first time buyers

- supporting younger people with the first chance at homes in new housing developments with a government-backed mortgage guarantee scheme.

Will it work?

National organisations such as th Chartered Institute of Housing have welcomed the proposed measures, pointing out that restrictive planning laws have been a hindrance for many years.

If the objective is create a short to medium term bounce in housebuilding, Labour's plans will likely succeed. According to CBRE, the available brownfield land in the UK's urban areas could accommodate up to a million homes.

However, the proposed measures alone will do little to solve the long term structural imbalance between supply and demand. Respected non-political think tank Centre for Cities recently stated that the UK needs to build 450,000 homes per year for 25 years to be on a par with the housing provision of our European neighbours.

At some point a government, be it Labour or otherwise, will have to grasp the nettle and develop a long term construction plan or the UK's housing crisis will only deepen.