Oral Answers to Questions

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

Again, I ask hon. Members to wait for the spending review on Wednesday, and for the provisional settlement in December. We are under no illusion about the pressures faced by councils on homelessness. In the end, we need to repair the system, which is about providing safe, secure and affordable housing for people to live in. We will do that, but we also recognise that there is a problem today. Further detail on that will follow.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

3. What plans her Department has to develop Stretton Hall through the new homes accelerator programme.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

Stretton Hall is one of seven sites that the Government have identified to date that we believe would benefit from support through the new homes accelerator, which is a joint programme between the Department and Homes England aiming to speed up the delivery of large-scale housing developments across England.

[Neil O’Brien]

Documents from Harborough district council reveal that there are sites with a capacity of up to 16,000 homes around Stretton Hall. The Government’s press release in August said that there would be around 4,000 homes on the site that they are involved in. Will the Minister confirm which Minister visited the site before the announcement? Will he agree to publish the methodology that led to our community being selected, and the list of sites that were considered but not selected?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have not had the opportunity to visit the site, but I intend to do so in the future, along with the other new homes accelerator sites. On the point of principle, to meet housing demand and housing need in England, every area of the country must play its part. The site in question is currently being promoted in both the Harborough local plan and the Oadby and Wigston local plan, as it crosses the boundary of both local authorities. Although I appreciate that it does face a number of planning and enabling challenges, the Government believe that it nevertheless has the potential to make a significant contribution to housing supply in Leicestershire.