West Worcestershire MP Dame Harriett Baldwin has warned that new higher housing targets could result in extra pressure for infrastructure across the county.

And the overhaul of the planning system announced by the Government today will mean that English councils will have to push through the construction of an extra 1.5 million homes along with a review of the Green Belt.

Last week, The MP met with Malvern Hills District Council planning head Ian Macleod to get an update on the progress of the South Worcestershire Development Plan which is the planning blueprint for growth across the area.

The latest update of the plan will see an additional 23,000 new homes built over the next two decades with 5,000 new homes projected for a new settlement at Worcestershire Parkway station and 1,000 homes at Bredon and Rushwick.

However, in an announcement made yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner more than doubled the annual target without explaining how the infrastructure would be increased.

The South Worcestershire Development Plan is due to be reviewed by a Planning Inspector next year before it is formally adopted.

Dame Harriett said:

“I have always opposed Stalinist top-down housing targets and this latest statement by the Government is everything I warned about a new Labour Government.

“It doesn’t care about food security or the precious countryside and Ministers have already said that they are happy to see solar farms, electricity pylons and wind farms sprouting up all over our beautiful area..

“Now the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government has set massively increased national housing targets without any clear plan on how or where they will be delivered. Most ridiculously they have actually decreased the London targets while more than doubling our South Worcestershire annual target.

“West Worcestershire is a beautiful rural constituency with hills and flood plains that Labour simply wants to concrete over. The Deputy Prime Minister has never been here and yet with a stroke of a pen from Whitehall she has forced it to change forever. We already have an ambitious plan to build homes. This Stalinist mandate will put even more pressure on our local roads and our health service. It's a terrible moment for West Worcestershire.”