Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts
Monday 30th April 2018

(5 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Henry Smith Portrait Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
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T3. I very much welcome my right hon. Friend to his well deserved position as Secretary of State; it is a good appointment. In Crawley, Forge Wood is the newest neighbourhood currently being developed, and it will deliver almost 2,000 houses. However, the infrastructure lag from Persimmon Homes and Taylor Wimpey is too long. What can be done to encourage developers to speed up the delivery of that infrastructure?

Dominic Raab Portrait The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)
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I thank my hon. Friend. He will know that the Government are putting £4.5 million infrastructure funding into the Forge Wood scheme, but he is absolutely right that developers must do their bit and keep their commitments. We are looking at this both in the consultation on the national planning policy framework and in developer contributions. We want to see those developer contributions treated more like contracts for delivery and less like the starting point for an endless haggle with local councils.