Housebuilder boss Stewart Baseley has expressed concern over the effect on housing supply of the Conservative Party's proposed localism policy. Under this policy development decisions will be devolved to local communities encouraged by cash incentives from council tax receipts.

But speaking at today's Housing Market Intelligence conference in London, Baseley said: "I am concerned what level of incentive would need to be offered to be sufficient to overcome the inate level of nimbyism. Nimbyism is alive and kicking in every community in the land."

Earlier at the conference shadow housing minister Grant Shapps had defended localism saying that the incentives would turn "nimbies into yimbies - yes in my back yard." He said that plans to build 10,000 homes in his constituency would generate £100 million of cash for the local community, changing his stance from opposing the homes to supporting them to boost local services.

* HBF chairman Stewart Baseley told the conference that HBF was calling on the government not to withdraw help from the market in the near future. To do so, he said, may stall the market just as it recovers. Baseley called for the stamp duty holiday to be extended and the timeframe for Kickstart and HomeBuy Direct lengthened.