We are a little confused by the Government’s new housing policy. It has scrapped regional guidelines for the number of homes that should be built in the South East — or any other region for that matter.
That is a major change in the way of doing things. However you dress it up, the top-down approach under which Government lays down guidelines on the number of homes that need to be built has been practised for many decades. It was not a Labour Government invention.
So, who is now setting a housing strategy for Oxfordshire or the South East?
What happens if the Vale of White Horse says no new homes should be built in its district, they should all go in South Oxfordshire? What if Oxfordshire says few new homes should be built here, they should all be built in Buckinghamshire?
Some clarity on how this system is meant to work would be welcome. The fear has to be that lack of clarity leads to any plot of land being prey to predatory developers.
