PM says he will be ‘judged at the end of the five-year term’In her Today programme interview this morning Yvonne Gagen, the Labour leader of West Lancashire borough council, said the target for new housebuilding for her authority set by the Labour government, which is more than three times as high as the previous target, was unrealistic. (See 9.01am.)Explaining why the West Lancashire target could not be achieved, she said:We have 90% green belt, at grade one agricultural land, and we need to protect this. It’s high quality, and it’s deemed essential in its role for national food security and local employment.We have very few brownfield sites and very few greyfield sites.We’re very clear … Yes, we want to put in place more stretching housing targets in most parts of the country. We need every part of the country to play its part.What local councils should do is look in terms of allocating land for release and ensuring that permissions come forward. They should look to densify on parts of the land that is available, brownfield land, for example. They should look to review green belt. They should look to work in cooperation with neighboring authorities …[They] should release, where necessary, those low quality parts of the green belt – we call it grey belt – in the first instance …And then the planning inspector, when you bring a local plan forward, will judge whether you have exhausted all those options, or whether you have hard constraints that mean you can’t release the land.I’ll be judged at the end of the five-year term on whether we deliver what we said we will deliver, and that’s all that matters. That’s what gets me up in the morning. That’s why I came into politics, to bring about that change. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/dec/06/keir-starmer-labour-housebuilding-uk-politics-latest-news
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2024-12-06 10:39:02
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Keir Starmer dismisses approval ratings slump, saying ‘all that matters’ is delivering change by next election – UK politics live
