UK housing minister entices housebuilders with personal pledge

UK housing minister Gavin Barwell told housebuilders to see him personally if they were having trouble finding land in Britain on which to construct.

Speaking at the Mipim conference in Cannes this week, Barwell said the government was committed to building more homes to relieve Britain's housing crisis and to releasing enough land for 160,000 new properties.

“If you’ve got parts of the country where you want to build homes and you’re struggling to find land, you come and see me and I will then raise those issues with the relevant local authorities,” the Guardian cited him as saying.

“I don’t want people who want to build unable to do so because they can’t find the sites they want. “That’s an offer to anyone in this room – if you’re struggling to find sites you [can] come talk to me and I’ll try and do something about it.”

Barwell said he wanted to “change the politics” of housebuilding so that local people did not automatically protest at the suggestion of new construction, vowing to have “hard discussions” with local politicians who held up development.

Barwell said he would try to make sure housebuilding projects came with fresh infrastructure investments to allow communities to cope with additional residents.