Pulse.Assent

New Housing Minister Kit Malthouse MP sees housing delivery in action on a visit to Rochester Riverside development in Medway today (26 July 2018) as part of his role in building a housing market fit for the future.

Hot off the heels of major planning reforms announced earlier this week by the government, the minister joined council leader Alan Jarrett to tour the Medway-based development, meet apprentices and see how the site is helping to support the needs of the community.

Working closely with joint landowners, Medway Council and Homes England, Countryside has already started 400 of the 1,400 homes since work began in 2018.

Minister of State for Housing, Kit Malthouse MP said:

There are few missions more important than building more homes in the places that desperately need them.

Rochester Riverside is a great example of high quality, well designed homes with the infrastructure needed to create thriving communities that people want to live in. This is exactly what is at the heart of our new planning rule book which will help to deliver the 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s.

Leader of Medway Council, Councillor Alan Jarrett said:

We were delighted to welcome the new Minster of State for Housing, Kit Malthouse, to Medway and show him our flagship regeneration site, Rochester Riverside.

Here we are undergoing a monumental regeneration programme and delivering developments across our 5 towns to provide new opportunities and growth for all our residents.

We recognise the importance of meeting the housing demand and providing a range of accommodation, from luxury riverside homes to affordable.

We have a rich cultural heritage and this year represents our twentieth anniversary, in which we are celebrating the huge transformation journey.

We will continue to strengthen our economy, as well as provide further housing opportunities, over the next 20 years. It’s definitely an exciting future for those who choose to live, learn, work and visit Medway.

Touring the first phase of the construction site, the minister saw for himself the design and materials used as the homes were being prepared for new residents to move in.

He also met apprentice brick layers working on the site, building the homes while also learning valuable skills to set them up for the future.

The minister’s visit follows the launch of the new National Planning Policy Framework on 24 July 2018, setting out new requirements for delivering high quality new homes, giving the community a real say in development proposals and also introducing tougher environmental protections that safeguard wildlife and air quality.

The government has been clear on its ambition to achieve 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, which follows 217,000 homes built last year, the biggest increase in housing supply in England for almost a decade.

Rural businesses and communities are set to benefit from improved broadband access as part of a £45 million boost by the government.

The new funding for the government’s Rural Broadband Infrastructure Scheme adds to the £30 million investment announced last year, increasing the total pot of funding available to £75 million.

The money will be made available through grants to local authorities that have already applied for funding, in areas where broadband services at speeds of 30Mbps or faster are not available or planned. The funding will be used to support full fibre wherever possible.

It follows the launch of the Government’s Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review this week which outlined plans to prioritise hard-to-reach rural areas for roll out of full fibre connectivity.

Visiting North York Moors National Park today, Lord Gardiner will announce that North Yorkshire is one of the local authorities to receive funding through the scheme with a grant offer of over £11 million.

Rural Affairs Minister Lord Gardiner said:

I am delighted to announce today that North Yorkshire has been awarded a grant of £11 million towards improving its broadband infrastructure.

Rural areas should not be left behind in the connectivity slow lane, missing out on the opportunities high speed broadband can bring. The funding made available through the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Scheme champions our countryside communities and businesses by opening up access to broadband of at least 30 Megabits per second, in some of the most hard to reach areas.

The increased funding for the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Scheme follows a positive response and a high number of applications from local authorities. It is part of planned investment of at least £3.5 billion into our rural economies by 2020, supporting the quarter of businesses in the UK which are based in the countryside.

The scheme is delivered by the Rural Payments Agency and supports those rural areas which are not currently scheduled to receive broadband as part of commercial delivery plans or under the Government’s Superfast Broadband Programme, which expects to give access to superfast broadband to around 97% of UK premises over the next few years.

With nearly a fifth of people living in the countryside, it is important that the needs of rural communities are heard loud and clear across government. In addition to driving forward high speed internet, the government is championing housing availability and supporting job creation.

Lord Gardiner is today visiting the North York Moors National Park as part of National Parks Week where he will also meet a number of young workers and apprentices. North York Moors supported 120 apprentices through its Apprenticeship Programme, amounting to over 50,000 working days.