Northumberland's housing figures sparks political row

The data, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service and confirmed as correct by the council, show that an average of 1,552 new homes have been constructed each year since 2016/17. The highest number were built in 2018/19, when 1,802 homes were constructed.

Meanwhile the lowest was during the first year of the pandemic in 2020/21, when the figure dropped to 1,277. The county’s housing target of 549 homes was set out in the council’s Local Plan – the planning policy document covering the entire county which was finally adopted in 2022, after six years of work.

The figures have sparked a row between the county’s biggest political groups. The Conservative administration has repeatedly slammed the new Labour Government for its controversial proposed new housing target of 1,768 homes per year, which marks a 222 per cent increase on the one set in the local plan.

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However, Northumberland Labour now argue that the new targets will only see a small increase on the number of homes actually built in the county since 2016. The new target is around 14 per cent higher than the average number of homes built annually in that time.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Northumberland Labour leader Cllr Scott Dickinson said: “The figures show how misleading the whole campaign has been. It has been designed in an election year to create as much scaremongering as possible – and their own figures prove that.

Cllr Scott Dickinson (Image: LDRService) "The whole thing has been very misleading and scaremongering to make communities think a huge building programme was going to take place. In actual fact with the plan and target they’re referring to, they have allowed developers to build anywhere they want over the last six years.

“This new policy allows us to build housing where communities need it. It will be similar numbers of houses but in places where communities need them, working with developers to create them. The new policy allows for consideration to be given to infrastructure need – things like schools and GP surgeries.

“Northumberland has over 6,000 empty school places. Then you have other areas where schools are bursting at the seams because it is a popular area for developers to make money – and people have moved there from places with empty schools because there are no houses.

“It would seem logical to build houses where infrastructure needs it, and make schools more sustainable.”

The Conservatives meanwhile have attacked Labour for their record in power at county hall from 2013 until 2017. The council’s deputy leader Cllr Richard Wearmouth accused the party of allowing thousands of homes without plans for infrastructure.

He said: “Labour will do anything to hide from the fact that their government is forcing a huge 222 per cent increase in house building targets on Northumberland. It is crazy and utterly reckless.

“The county is only now recovering from the last Labour council, which gave planning permission to over 20,000 homes with no plan for how infrastructure would cope. Thankfully our Conservative administration ended those dark days where developers could do whatever they wanted.

“We put in place a Local Plan that sees housing targeted where our communities need them. Of course all those thousands of houses Labour and Cllr Dickinson gave permission for between 2013 and 2017 didn’t get built overnight.

“When Cllr Dickinson talks about very large levels of homes being built without infrastructure to cope, it is due to him and his colleagues giving them permission.  We did not need all those homes and have been living with the consequences of their poor choices for nearly a decade.

“The distressing part of this whole saga is that now with a Labour government, Northumberland is under threat all over again. We are obligated to build thousands of homes we don’t need to line the pockets of rich property developers and potentially in places where we don’t want them just to satisfy this ridiculous target.

“All the whilst London, where homes are needed, sees a huge 20 per cent reduction in their targets. It is utterly mad.”

In 2017, Labour had a planning policy in place for Northumberland – but this was scrapped by the Tories after their election victory owing to fears about the future of the green belt.

Asked about the Conservatives laying the blame at Labour’s door, Cllr Dickinson said: “I would say it is categorically untrue. The Labour Party left the council with a local plan in place which they withdrew and said they would have a new one in six weeks – it took nearly three years.

“The council had no plan, no guidance, and no control. They have continued to allow developers to operate in that vein.

“The most sensible plan would have been to leave it in place and make amendments. All they did was change the number of houses. They have allowed developers to build in excess of a thousand more homes than it states that they will build in their plan.

“They made a great big thing about it, and what has it actually done? It’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”

The final figure for the county’s new housing target is expected in the coming months following consultation with councils across the country.