Newington's Joshua Lindsey looks at what the Labour manifesto holds for housing and planning. 

As the polls tighten and the Conservative campaign appears increasingly accident-prone, many may be turning to the Labour Party manifesto to better understand exactly what is being proposed in the unlikely event that Jeremy Corbyn does walk into Downing Street on 9 June. 

On housing, Labour pledges to build ‘over a million new homes’. The party backs up this ambitious target with a recently commissioned House of Commons analysis, which found that Labour councils built an average of 898 more homes a year than Conservative councils.

According to the manifesto, a Labour Government would establish a new Department for Housing to focus political and civil service resources towards home building. Continuing this theme, Labour also promises to give teeth to the Homes and Communities Agency and local councils to become ‘delivery bodies’ for new homes.

On planning, a Labour government would place emphasis on brownfield land and new towns. They shy away from calling these ‘garden towns’, a term which has been co-opted by the Conservative government.

On home ownership the manifesto promises to guarantee Help-to-Buy funding until 2027. With strong words to developers and investors, the Labour Party would tackle ‘rip-off ground rents and end the routine use of leasehold houses in new developments’.

When the manifesto leaked days before its official launch, Conservatives called it “a shambles” and the Telegraph said that it fails to “break down the costs” and that “the manifesto contains plans for a £48.6 billion tax raid”. Labour hit back by pointing out that the Conservative manifesto promises to build more social housing without promising any additional budget. Elsewhere, the Financial Times called it the “most left wing manifesto since the Michael Foot years”.

With the polls tightening and a series of recent gaffs from the Conservative campaign, Labour activists will be feeling increasingly buoyed going into the last few days before polling day. The odds are still against them, but the promises made in the manifesto are looking much more real now than during its bungled launch.