{"id":769633,"date":"2026-09-13T19:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T19:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769633\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T19:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T19:28:14","slug":"only-slim-chance-target-of-1-5m-new-homes-in-england-will-be-met-angela-rayner-says-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769633\/","title":{"rendered":"Only slim chance target of 1.5m new homes in England will be met, Angela Rayner says | Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government is unlikely to meet its target of building 1.5m homes in England, Angela Rayner<\/a> has acknowledged, saying there was only a \u201cslim chance\u201d enough houses would be built before the next election.<\/p>\n

The manifesto pledge to build 1.5m houses by the next election was a \u201cstretch target\u201d, the communities secretary added, but said it was not being ditched and she was \u201cdefinitely not giving up\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s target has been significantly hampered by inflation owing to the US war with Iran. Housebuilders have cut back the number of developments despite Labour\u2019s planning reforms which were hoped to increase the numbers of new homes.<\/p>\n

Rayner, who returned to the role after Andy Burnham<\/a> became prime minister, acknowledged for the first time on Sunday that she could miss the target.<\/p>\n

She told the BBC\u2019s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: \u201cIt\u2019s a slim chance, but I\u2019m definitely not giving it up. I think it\u2019s really important that we keep a target that it was always a stretch target.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rayner said Burnham\u2019s main focus was now on building council houses, suggesting that was taking priority over efforts to increase the overall target.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister wants us to make sure we\u2019re building council houses. He\u2019s made that absolutely, fundamentally clear,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve just announced \u00a310bn into a social and affordable homes programme. We\u2019re seeing home starts up by 15% last year, so we are making a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the headwinds that are coming our way internationally and through those construction costs are having a negative effect on that target.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham recently backtracked on plans<\/a> for cash from the 10-year affordable homes programme to be spent entirely on social homes, which he had suggested he was minded to do. Instead the \u00a310bn will be spent on the mix of subsidised housing types in England, in line with the Starmer government\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n

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The funds will build 70,000 homes outside London, about 60% of which will be social rented houses. The rest will be other types of accommodation such as shared ownership schemes and sheltered housing. London will get another \u00a36bn, which will be allocated at a later date.<\/p>\n

Ministers are keen to find other ways to relax regulations for private sector builders, including instructing councils to give a \u201cdefault yes\u201d approach to housing developments that are within a reasonable walking distance<\/a> of well-connected train and tram stations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government is unlikely to meet its target of building 1.5m homes in England, Angela Rayner has acknowledged,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-769633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}