Housing targets have 'punished' areas - Badenoch

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of "punishing the areas that they think they don't have supporters in" with higher housing targets.

The government said targets were focused on parts of the country where housing was least affordable.

The East of England needs to build 45,000 new properties every year, as part of the government's plan to achieve 1.5 million homes in this parliament.

Speaking at a Brentwood factory, Badenoch said: "Labour is probably not even going to end building many of these new homes because they have put in all these regulations and they have put in very, very high targets for social housing, which means they won't be that easy for developers to build."

Badenoch said immigration was increasing demand for housing.

"We are increasing the number of people coming into the country at a rate that we cannot simply build houses for," she said.

Gavin Callaghan, Labour leader for Basildon Council, told the BBC: "We desperately need homes. In Basildon we have over 10,000 people aged between 20 and 34 living at home with their parents because they can't get a home to rent or buy."

In Brentwood, where the Tory leader met workers at Baker Labels, nearly one in four 24-35 year-olds are living with their parents according to census data.

Badenoch said: "We must build homes and this is where we do support Labour.

"We built about a million over the course of our parliament. But they need to be in the right places - the infrastructure needs to be there first."

The Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said the government was working "to ensure that the right infrastructure comes forward".

The government has said councils must meet their housing targets and that, if they refuse to put a local plan in place to do this, ministers will intervene and in extreme cases could take over plans themselves.

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