This morning Shadow Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy is promising to “reintroduce requirements for local areas to make sure enough homes are being built” through Local Housing Need central targets for each council. The Government said last year that Local Housing Need would be an “advisory starting point” and could be adjusted to take into account local circumstances, with Michael Gove citing the Green Belt as one reason that local authorities could use to depart from the centrally-generated target. Now Labour are trying to toughen up with a promise to get shovels in the ground, with Nandy claiming “Labour is proudly the party of home ownership”…

Lisa’s supposedly tough new planning policy, however, is a departure from the Nandy of old. In 2016, she responded to plans for housing in Greater Manchester by demanding that the “process has the consent of the communities it will impact”. She went on to cite three local factors – the Green Belt, air quality and traffic congestion – as reasons why Wigan should not have thousands of extra homes…

Nandy isn’t the only member of the shadow housing team pretending to be pro-housing while acting like NIMBYs in their own constituency. Her deputies, Shadow Minister Matthew Pennycock opposed a 1,500 home development in his constituency over “tower height concerns”, while his colleague Paula Barker criticised this one last month.
Read Nandy’s full letter below: