David Cameron failed to foist new houses on rural areas. Why does Keir Starmer think he’ll succeed? | Simon Jenkins
Thursday 18th July 2024
Labour’s bonfire of planning regulations will stir up the shires and let down those most in need – but the construction lobby will be happy
Outside Glastonbury last month, festivalgoers might have caught sight of David Cameron’s policy of planning de-regulation in action, sprawling across Somerset. Acres of identikit houses, mini-Tudor and mini-Georgian, seemingly flown in and dumped from somewhere off London’s North Circular Road. Hundreds of other similar estates appeared across Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Suffolk, Essex and anywhere a Whitehall inspector thought to plant a housing statistic. Local context was disregarded, electors revolted and the policy was eventually reversed.
Keir Starmer wants to bring the policy back. He has identified the nation’s economic problems with a lack of growth and lack of growth with housebuilding. This, he believes, is being impeded by local planners and despised nimbys. He showed his machismo towards them by getting his energy secretary, Ed Miliband, immediately to inflict two giant solar panel arrays on to a furious East Anglia, with a promise of onshore wind turbines and pylons to come.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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