Above: Victor was interviewed at Curo's development Mulberry Park
Victor da Cunha, Chief Executive of Curo, was interviewed on Wednesday 17 July by BBC Points West, responding to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill plans revealed in the King’s Speech.
The Government has said that it wants to make major reforms to the planning system to build 1.5 million homes and kickstart economic growth. The Bill will make changes to the planning system which aim to make it easier to build housing and create new infrastructure.
“I'm smiling because this is great news,” Victor told the BBC in an interview at Curo’s Mulberry Park development in Bath. “It's great news because we have just built our 1,000th Curo home, but it's also great news for this country. We've got 1.29 million people waiting to be housed on council registers and 5,500 people on the register in Bath & North East Somerset. This is good news for them and for our economy. Build houses, build our economy.”
Asked if the sector could deliver the homes needed without building on green-belt land, Victor said: “I think people are focusing on the Government’s request to local authorities to look at ‘grey-belt’ land – bits of land that you and I would agree aren't used for much, for example, old garage sites. But the important thing is that we develop on existing brownfield sites first. Mulberry Park was a former Ministry of Defence site. We regenerated it into what it is today, and that should be our priority. That's not to say that we shouldn't develop poor-quality grey-belt land too.”
Watch the programme again on BBC iPlayer.