Mr McCarthy criticised the “mountains of red tape and additional costs which were piled on under the Conservative government”.
The entrepreneur highlighted his troubles with a 160-home development in Christchurch, Dorset, as evidence.
Churchill had to complete 45 reports and pay a total of £90,000 to make a planning application for the project. Six weeks later, the council said Natural England rules meant they were unable to greenlight any developments in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch.
“All of these additional costs that we are being hit with reduces the amount of affordable housing that comes forward.”
Mr McCarthy also suggested it was too easy for people to oppose building work in their area.
Retirement home developments, such as Churchill’s projects in Lymington, Hampshire, and Exmouth, Devon, are increasingly blocked by local opposition, he said.
“All too often in the planning system when we are coming into various local authorities and towns we have had petitions against some of our developments because people say they don’t want any more old people in the area,” he said. “At the end of the day it is down to ageism.”
Britain’s ageing population means that there will be a shortfall of 400,000 retirement homes by 2035, according to the Housing Learning and Improvement Network, and Mr McCarthey said the Tory manifesto failed to address older people’s housing needs.
“Nearly 20pc of the UK population are over 65. That’s close to just over 11 million people who are over 65. All too often we see it, when we’ve met with ministers in the past when we’ve been discussing housing, this segment of society does tend to be left aside,” Mr McCarthy said.
Although the Tory manifesto pledged to “encourage the building of different forms of housing, particularly housing for older people”, it included no policy plans on how to do this.
“It really smacks of too little too late,” Mr McCarthy said.