Tony Pidgley, managing director at Berkeley Homes, welcomed the housing green paper’s attempt to tackle local authority planning delays, which he regards as ‘the big hold-up’ in the process. Financial Times

Pidgley said the housebuilder owned 10 large sites ready for development that had been caught up in the planning machinery for three to four years. One site had won an appeal in November but the local authority had still not processed the application.

’They have given us a list of further work to do,’ said Pidgley, ‘just so they can meet their planning targets. We’ve got so many hurdles to jump in the planning system. It needs to be speeded up if the government hopes to meet its affordable homes targets.

‘You would be amazed if I could show you the 10 sites we have had in planning, some for five years. These are not Green pretty fields, these are dirty brownfield sites.’