<p>Housebuilding is facing an “unprecedented” threat from the government’s changes to the planning system and lack of support to solve the nutrients issue, according to the Home Builders Federation’s Stewart Baseley.</p> <p>Speaking at HBF’s Policy Conference held in London today (May 11), the HBF executive chairman said he was struggling to remember a time in the past 40 years or more, “when there were quite so many complex challenges operating at the same time”. </p> <p>But he highlighted the combination of government’s seemingly anti-development stance through its revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and its inadequate approach to schemes seeking nutrient neutrality as “frightening”. The two issues were “a threat to housebuilding, the likes of which I’ve never seen”, he said.</p> <p>On the government’s proposals for the NPPF, he said: “It’s never been my policy to fight our [HBF’s] battles through the press but it’s important to explode this issue”.</p> <p>Baseley referred to Conservative ministers who were taking a more “sympathetic” stance than other MPs towards housebuilding. On this note, ex-housing minister and MP Brandon Lewis expressed his support for the sector in a speech that followed Baseley’s. He said that housing was “the most important topic for …