New housing minister Kit Malthouse has taken housebuilders to task, complaining there is “not much” quality design in the new homes being built and that buyers are turning a blind eye to eyesores simply to get on the housing ladder.

Malthouse, who was appointed to the housing portfolio in July’s cabinet reshuffle, made a series of swipes at housebuilders in a speech at this week’s Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

He told a fringe meeting organised by the Town and Country Planning Association that if the public was going to get behind the government’s plans to increase the number of homes being built in the coming years to 300,000 a year, they had to be better designed. 

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