<p> <br/></p><p>The housing minister Kit Malthouse has called for a “golden period of housebuilding” with housebuilders “building the conservation areas of the future” to win over communities.</p><p>Sending a message to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) Better Design for Better Places conference in Birmingham today (February 14), Malthouse said that with the increase in housing output, he was seeing more resistance to development from a design perspective.</p><p>“People are feeling what’s being designed is ubiquitous and not fitting in with communities,” he explained. He had learned from his constituency in North West Hampshire that the “bulk” of objection to new housing concerned design. “People worry what’s being plonked down won’t enhance the area.”</p><p>With the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year, “there’s going to be no part of the country untouched by construction,” Malthouse continued. “When you’ve got a greater scale of housebuilding, there will be pushback.”</p><p>Under the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, launched last Autumn, Malthouse said that he and the housing secretary James Brokenshire were focusing on beauty and design. </p><p>He therefore hoped to “persuade” the industry to collaborate with residents to create places that would enhance communities and instil pride.</p><p>“We need to make <span>room</span> …