DEPUTY prime minister Angela Rayner has given assurances that Somerset will not be subject to “development at all cost” as it struggles to deliver new houses.

Labour won a landslide election victory on July 4, with the new government pledging to deliver one-and-a-half million new homes across the UK over the next five years and reintroducing mandatory housing targets for local councils.

Around 18,000 homes in Somerset are currently being held up by the phosphates crisis, with Somerset Council and various developers attempting to negotiate additional mitigation (such as the creation of wetlands or fallowing agricultural land) to prevent damage to the Somerset Levels and Moors.

Ms Rayner – who is also the new housing secretary – has promised that she would support the council in unlocking these new homes without creating further environmental problems in the future.

Council leader Bill Revans raised the issue at a councillors’ forum held by Local Government Association on Thursday afternoon (July 18).

Posting on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, he said: “I have asked
Angela Rayner for government support to unlock the housing development held up by nutrient neutrality, so we can unlock 18,000 homes stuck in the system here (and elsewhere) while protecting and cleaning up the Somerset Levels and Moors.”

The government provided the council with £9.6m shortly before Christmas to trial a number of solutions to the phosphates crisis, including the creation of new nature reserves, retrofitting social housing and growing miscanthus grass on the Levels.

Responding to Mr Revans directly, Ms Rayner said she had been extensively briefed on nutrient neutrality during her time in opposition and was keen to help the council unlock new homes.

She said: “We do want to see these developments to go forward, but we can’t solve one problem and then in ten to 15 years’ time we’ve got taxpayers cleaning up the mess of this problem.

“We put forward some ideas in opposition and there was some cross-party support for doing something different, especially in the Lords, so I want to engage to resolve those problems as quickly as possible.

“But it’s not development at any cost – I think we’re going to get the balance right.”

Ms Rayner said a government taskforce would work with councils to hold developers to account in instances where they had failed to provide infrastructure or community funding secured through Section 106 agreement or via the community infrastructure levy (CIL).

She added: “There is a carrot and stick approach here, with these golden rules.

“Working together with you, we can get the kinds of developments we want and the critical infrastructure that we need as part of that, which often causes significant pressures in local areas and the opposition that we see.”