10,000 homes on ex-military bases were never built

Labour put housing front and centre of its general election campaign and pledged to deliver 1.5 million new homes in the next five years.

On Thursday, Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said housebuilding had been held back by “a failure to make sure the development system is working as it should”.

She was speaking at the launch of a new team of planning experts that will be deployed to potential housing sites to work through blockages and and local issues.

But housing charity Shelter has criticised the government for not making use of the land identified by the now-defunct MoD scheme.

Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, told the BBC: “Government-owned land that is well located and suitable for housing is hard to come by, so when it’s available, it is vital that it is used to deliver more social rent homes for families on low incomes.”

The now defunct MoD scheme, which was launched in 2019, external and involved a partnership with Homes England, the government’s housing agency, identified an initial seven sites for development.

Homes England was set up by the last Conservative government and has a remit to acquire land and help build more affordable houses.

One site at MoD Stafford was released to Homes England but remains undeveloped.

Another in Ripon, in North Yorkshire, is still under consideration for private development and could accommodate 1,300 new houses.

The other five sites, at Prince William of Gloucester Barracks in Grantham, Lincolnshire; Swynnerton camp, in Stone, Staffordshire; RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire; Chetwynd Barracks in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire and Wethersfield Airfield in Braintree, Essex, were withdrawn from the programme by the government.

Reasons for withdrawal included military needs in the wake of the Ukraine invasion and Home Office plans to house asylum seekers.

It is understood some of the land initially identified was instead kept under MoD control and used to train Ukrainian soldiers.

Wethersfield Airfield had been one of the earmarked sites, but was instead taken over by the Home Office and began accommodating asylum seekers in July last year.