Housebuilding near train stations to get ‘default yes’ under new planning changes – UK politics live

Thousands more houses could be built near transport hubs including on green belt sites

• Loosening of planning rules in England to allow more new homes near stations

The shadow housing secretary, James Cleverly, has told Sky News that the loosening of planning rules in England – that will allow more new homes to be built near stations – are a “smokescreen to disguise the fact that they (Labour) have catastrophically failed to get stuff built”.

Cleverly said “housebuilding in the UK has collapsed” in part because Labour made the process “prohibitively expensive”.