Despite increasing concern about urban sprawl, cities in the Midlands, East Anglia, southeast and southwest of England will be designated as housing “growth points”.
Birmingham, Leicester, Bristol and Norwich are among the cities earmarked for extra funds. The handouts are part of a drive to boost housebuilding by an extra 40,000 homes a year over the next decade.
The cities will be given the money to create more “affordable” homes for public servants, including nurses and teachers, struggling to get on to the property ladder.
Plans for a huge housebuilding programme were the brainchild of John Prescott, the deputy prime minister. However, lobby groups are opposing many of the developments on the grounds they are “concreting over” precious countryside.
Yvette Cooper, the housing and planning minister, said: “We have an ageing and growing population with more people living alone which is why we need to build more homes in every region. If we don’t build the new homes that are needed, then in 20 years’ time only a third of 30-year-old couples will be able to afford a place of their own.
Advertisement
“We are now working with local authorities right across the country who want to see new homes and investment in their area to meet local need.”
The money provided by the government in its “new growth points” initiative is not for bricks and mortar, but to support roads, rail and bus links.
Ministers received more than 20 bids from 50 local authorities in areas of high housing demand.
The government’s ambition is to increase the overall annual level of housebuilding in England from about 160,000 today to 200,000 by 2016.
Even at this rate, housebuilding would not match the growth in new households, which stands at 209,000 a year, according to the department for communities and local government.
Advertisement
The Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “We cannot simply build our way out of what is essentially an affordable housing problem.”