Commenting on the government’s garden villages announcement, John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, said:

“This is more hot air on housing from Conservative Ministers. In the last Parliament they promised a flagship ‘garden city’ at Ebbsfleet. Since 2012, we’ve had 32 government announcements on Ebbsfleet but less than 500 homes built – or 16 homes for every press release.

“After six years of failure on housing under Conservative Ministers, the number of people who are homeless has doubled, the number of home-owners has fallen by 200,000, and in the last six years we built fewer homes than under any peacetime Prime Minister since the 1920s. The country deserves a proper plan for fixing the housing crisis, not just more hot air.”