Housing is the central nib of Labour’s battle against the Green Party in the upcoming local elections. Both sides think they have gains to make targeting the issue…
Zack Polanski has trailed comments for his local election campaign launch today in London:
“Look at how Labour councils treat their own tenants… One of Keir Starmer’s flagship pledges was to end the use of cruel and unfair Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions. But while he dithered and delayed, Labour’s own councils were using legal loopholes to kick out council tenants using Section 21. Families left traumatised by the fear of living in temporary accommodation. Bailiffs turning up at the door to turf people out. Under a Labour council — while their government proudly proclaimed themselves the party of renters. Shameful.”
The Greens are set to offer rent controls and various measures against ‘commercial housebuilders’ as part of their local offer. Correct – the left has zero new ideas of any kind…
Number crunchers at Labour HQ have meanwhile put out overnight analysis claiming that “the Greens have attempted to block at least 42,000 homes from being built across the country, including at least 13,000 affordable homes, since 2018.“ This is central to the Greens’ longtime strategy to propose radical policy in Westminster and act like ‘nice’ Green Tories in the shires – Polanski’s efforts may blow that one up…
Guido has long tracked the Greens’ rabid NIMBY campaigning. They even opposed a solar farm…
West Oxfordshire Conservatives are paying for Facebook ads to campaign against building flats on a car park in Witney. It happens to be a brownfield site…
If you open a dictionary and look for the definition of ‘NIMBY’, you’ll probably find that advert…
Serial blocker Rother Valley Labour MP Jake Richards is continuing his campaign against the party’s vaunted ‘build baby build’ initiative. Richards is now opposing 101 homes in Hellaby. This time, rather than going through the humiliation of posting his NIMBYism online, Richards opted for the old-fashioned leaflet to confirm his objection. Notably there’s no mention of the fact he is a Labour MP and he only uses the inoffensive Commons green colours…
Richards has already objected to the adjacent 260 homes in Hellaby, more than 300 new homes in Whiston and has consistently expressed his “concerns” over plans for a solar farm in Whitestone. This is despite his crows about being proud member of the Labour Growth Group. Might provide a few domestics with his newly-minted Housing SpAd wife Liz Bates…
Defence Secretary John Healey has written to the developers of Whitestone Solar Farm to oppose the development of the 750 MW project in his constituency on the grounds of ‘proportionality, safety, and fairness’. Presumably he’ll be writing to his Cabinet colleague Ed Miliband soon too, because the proposal is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), and it will ultimately cross Red Ed’s desk for sign-off. Just last week, the government approved the UK’s largest solar farm in Lincolnshire…
Healey has told his constituents today, however, that all this “must be done right, with proper community engagement and without sacrificing our local environment“:
“I summarise my concerns below. If you go ahead with a formal application for this development, I plan to make a detailed submission to the Planning Inspectorate. My objections will not be made alone; many other local voices. organisations, and statutory consultees will be doing the same. I have long supported the need for Britain to expand renewable energy generation. It is cheap, home-grown, job-creating and essential for cutting our dependence on fossil fuels. And foreign state suppliers. When people elected us to government last year, we made a commitment to Clean Power by 2030 But, in my view, every project must still meet three tests. It must be proportionate, it must be safe. and it must be fair. Whitestone fails all three.”
Approving virtually all these NSIPs is central to Miliband’s agenda, not that you’d know that from Healey’s letter. It should make for a few awkward conversations at the Cabinet table. What happened to backing the builders, not the blockers?
A Labour and Tory MP along with the former head of Homes England are heading up a new campaign to encourage housebuilding. The wonks are pushing hard on planning as Labour begins to falter…
The Representative Planning Group (RPG) is launching today and is chaired by Simon Dudley – former chairman of Homes England – and Labour MP for Northampton South Mike Reader. Prominent Tory backbencher Jack Rankin is also involved…
The project is attempting to convince councillors that more people are supportive of new building than is reflected in proposal responses by advocating “or new tools like representative surveys, citizens’ panels, and digital polling to inform decision-making — especially on contentious developments.” MPs themselves are often the first defence of NIMBYism…
See the well-padded advisory board below:
Continue reading “Labour and Tory MPs Launch Joint Housebuilding Campaign”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has been leading the NIMBY charge in his capacity as a local MP by boasting about his campaigns to block more homes. Tory traditions…
Badenoch has issued repeated calls for more homes to be built and the Tory party leader said in the Times just last month: “Politically, government is increasingly powerless in the face of legal challenges. Last week I spoke about the tangle of domestic and international rules that block us building new homes and infrastructure.” Plus her own MPs…
Philp was tweeting to his Croydon South constituents over the weekend about “recent local planning victories” which all oppose the conversion of 60s homes into larger-occupancy residences. Most of the applications are entirely innocent…
Some specific decisions Philp has been opposing for months. The shadow home secretary frequently posts his ‘victories’ on Instagram and his website…
More housing makes housing cheaper. The average age at which voters switch to Tory is now 63. Staying full NIMBY is unsustainable…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”
