The Conservative Party’s long awaited planning green paper adopts a “high risk strategy” which may have unintended consequences for housing delivery, Stewart Baseley, chairman of the HBF has warned. Baseley said that while the HBF welcomed the Conservative’s commitment to increase housing delivery, its paper entitled Open Source Planning launched on February 22 presented housebuilders with many concerns, including the proposal to scrap regional targets and introduce a “bottom up” approach with local communities determining what housing gets built. “Whilst most people recognise the general need for more housing, when it is on their doorstep acceptance of that principle is often lacking,” said HBF. <br> <br> The paper aims to reform England’s “broken” planning system, bringing together neighbourhoods to encourage local sustainable development and create new homes and jobs. Other proposals within the paper include rewarding councils and communities through incentives to encourage building new homes and businesses, abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) and limiting appeals against local planning decisions. Other industry players welcomed the paper, but also expressed concerns over the more radical proposals. Ian Tant, senior partner at Barton Willmore, said that councils were at risk of tightening development controls with the Conservative’s localism approach: “It’s a …