LABOUR’S proposed reforms to the planning system would see huge increases in housing targets across Worcestershire.

The Government has set out plans to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

Housing secretary Angela Rayner said planning authorities may have to tear up draft housing masterplans and map out new green belt boundaries to make the “radical” plan work.

Under Labour’s proposed policy reforms, which have gone out to consultation, Worcester City Council would be expected to build 584 homes a year.

The housing target for Malvern Hills District Council would be 609 and for Wychavon District Council it would be 959.

The councils’ planning policies have all been shaped by the South Worcestershire Development Plan since it was adopted in 2016, so they don’t have individual targets as such.

The target for the three authorities is currently a combined 1,193 - about a thousand less than the total amount proposed under the new rules. 

In the north of the county, Wyre Forest District Council would be expected to build 617 new homes - up from 211. Redditch Borough Council’s target would rise from 143 to 489 and Bromsgrove District Council’s would go from 386 to 704.

READ MORE: Housing targets questioned as homes sit unfinished

Harriett Baldwin, the Tory MP for West Worcestershire, said: “I have always opposed Stalinist top-down housing targets and this latest statement by the Government is everything I warned about a new Labour Government.

“It doesn’t care about food security or the precious countryside and Ministers have already said that they are happy to see solar farms, electricity pylons and wind farms sprouting up all over our beautiful area.

“Now the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government has set massively increased national housing targets without any clear plan on how or where they will be delivered.”

Lib Dem county councillor Dan Boatright-Greene said the government should “stop spending time setting targets with no understanding of the local situation” while housing developments across Wychavon were left unfinished by developers.

Ms Rayner, who is also the deputy prime minister, has told council leaders they have a “moral obligation to see more homes built”.