Planning controls should be removed almost completely on 25% of greenfield land, allowing a doubling of the UK's developed area to help families buy their own homes, according to a report from the Policy Exchange think tank.
The Conservative-supporting body's report, Making Housing Affordable, takes an even stronger line than the Government on removing planning controls except where local ballots object.
It proposes removal of all housing density standards and affordable homes targets and, on brownfield sites and 25% of all greenfield sites, it says there should only be controls where there are homes nearby and 50% of their residents object.
It says national parks and AONBs should be protected, but the vast majority of the country should potentially be available, to stop house prices rising again.
"To prevent development occurring in less populated areas such as woodland or meadows, (where no one lives close-by but which are valued by locals and should remain unspoilt,) each local authority should be able to designate up to 75% of its existing undeveloped land as ‘off-limits' to developers," says the report.
"This would still allow for a huge increase in the numbers of new homes and well over a doubling of the land currently developed in the UK whilst protecting the character of rural areas."
Local authorities would only be able to object to any brownfield development located away from existing housing in exceptional circumstances which the report says should be a major incentive for redevelopment.
But it supports the Government's approach to the so-called "garden grabbing" issue and suggests cash incentives where homes are built.
"It should be up to local people how much development is allowed near them, through ballots of those affected by proposed developments," said the report's author Alex Morton.
"The cash incentives will be bigger in areas where housing is more expensive, meaning it is likely that more homes will be built in areas like London and the south-east."
Royal Town Planning Institute head of policy Matt Thomson said the Policy Exchange is an influential think tank whom one should take seriously, but its report should be read as a whole rather than picking out any single recommendation.“That said, it is difficult to see how a blanket policy that councils can only designate up to 75% of their undeveloped land as being ‘off limits’ to development fits in with the principles of localism expressed elsewhere in the report,” he said.
“The protection of land from development should be based on the character of the land and the needs and aspirations of the community, and not on an arbitrary threshold defined by Whitehall.”
