A NEW urban garden village or small town should be built on Teesside to meet growing demand for new homes.

The call from Tees Valley Mayoral candidate, Conservative Ben Houchen follows plans already set out by the Tees Valley Combined Authority to build up to 22,000 houses in the next ten years.

Mr Houchen, who as a potential mayor would have strategic powers to designate areas for housing development, said future housing numbers needed to be calculated based on the latest available evidence.

He also said numerous applications for housing in “property hotspots” were distorting the market and distracting policy makers who needed to give practical attention to the revitalisation of more run down areas.

Mr Houchen, a Yarm businessman, has already set the cat among the pigeons by declaring during his campaign that Cleveland Police should be scrapped because it has “lost credibility”.

He also suggested he would attempt to buy back Durham Tees Valley Airport if he was elected as Tees Valley Mayor.

Mr Houchen said the public would be consulted before deciding on the location for the new village or small town.

He said some mature neighbourhoods had become property hotspots and powers could be used to direct investment to areas where it was most needed and discourage applications elsewhere where people “feel hounded” by developers.

He said: “We need a full strategic solution to the planning debacle in the area.

“Over development is changing the character of our villages and towns at the same time as pricing people out of the market. This can’t go on and needs to change.”

He added: “Within Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool, there are only short distances between hotspots and areas of housing decline.

“A new community, an urban garden village, would enable hotspots to cool down and difficult areas to receive practical attention to revitalise existing neighbourhoods.

“The Government has embarked on a policy of garden villages to create new places to live in the UK, locally these ideas can be adopted to form urban villages.

“The last new community on Teesside was Wynyard Village, which was created by Sir John Hall in the 1990s.

“It has thrived and drawn development pressure away from other areas.

“In Newcastle Ouseburn village has become a very attractive and viable community and, with the right investment and proper planning, a new small town or large village on Teesside can achieve something special too.”

* The three other candidates for the Tees Valley Mayor are Sue Jeffrey for Labour, Chris-Foote Wood for the Lib Dems and UKIP’s John Tennant.