This year’s Conservative Party Conference very much confirmed the tone of Theresa May’s new administration.

Very firmly drawing a line under the Cameron and Osbourne years, conference may have reiterated the messages of old: more housing, greater infrastructure investment, an austerity Government – but the glossy gimmicks and ‘high-vis and photo-ready’ days have firmly been put to bed, with May a clear advocate of the softly, safely approach.

The injection of extra cash into the £3 billion Home Building Fund will be applauded by the industry, and encouraging builders to use more modern building techniques demonstrates the Conservatives are starting to think outside the box when it comes to housing policy. More generally, it is encouraging that the recent Conservative rhetoric of infrastructure importance continued this week, and there has been an obvious, and welcomed, emphasis throughout the conference on the need to get homes built.

Conservative ministers also furthered the debate in regards to sustainable locational choices, placing a renewed emphasis on urban regeneration, including boosting brownfield development and increasing density of housing around stations. Building around transport hubs can be determined as common-sense planning, an easily understood and relatively uncontroversial form of sustainable development.

Sustainable development itself on the other hand, is a little more complicated. Our Sustainable Development Commission (made up of eminent practitioners from varying corners of the industry) is currently scrutinising, with a fine tooth comb, the NPPF and developing from it an easily understandable, widely applicable criteria – dubbed by Iceni, the Sustainable Development Scorecard.

It is timely, and very welcomed, that the Conservative conference touched upon the notion of sustainable development. However, the elephant in the room continues to be the Green Belt (a topic barely touched upon all week, even Sajid Javid in his attack on Nimbyism refused to utter the phrase). It is all very well our Government promoting the importance of brownfield development and transport nodes but without at least attempting to turn the tide of Green Belt revere (and it is no coincidence that the majority of those that hold the Green Belt in the highest esteem tend to vote Conservative) we cannot begin to make substantial headway on tackling the housing crisis.

We are yet to see whether the Conservative’s new riskless, un-glitzy approach will satisfy the electorate – what is obvious is that without brave rhetoric and policy, housebuilding will continue to flat line.