Until local political leaders place the civic loyalties of their local areas beyond tribal ideologies of their party housing in their areas will remain unaffordable. You might expect lobbying to preserve the status quo from change from Conservative councillors who represent those already owning homes who fear change. Misguided but understandable. But this reactionary mind-set runs far deeper. I encountered it myself from Labour councillors in 2014 in Reading who objected to my essay for the Wolfson Prize advocating a substantially enlargement of Reading to provide the homes needed in a fast growth location. Apparently they preferred large areas of privately owned and largely inaccessible land on their doorstep despite two new rail stations, improved motorway access for their cars and vast areas of public open space for their residents enjoyment. They were blind, or choose to be so, but with a local council election three months ahead, a public meeting and petition of objection to the judges created the ideal platforms to appeal to the uninformed electors. It worked too!
A new example of contrived ignorance shows that the Liberal Democrats, when local circumstances suits them, are just as lacking in integrity. According to a report in Planning Resource by Michael Donnelly, 13 January 2025, a planning inspector has allowed a developer’s appeal for new 278 new homes on a former golf course in Stockport, citing the chronic undersupply of housing. Revealingly the Liberal Democrat deputy leader of Stockport Council Mark Roberts says “The Labour government has tied councils hands behind their backs with their developers charter to concrete over our green spaces and this is another very sad example of it. ……I fear this is the start of many such applications where local people and their council are ignored by national government to serve Labour’s agenda’”. He seems not to care if the next generation of young Stockport residents cannot afford to buy or rent a new home in the future.
This devils alliance crops up everywhere in localities that are doing well and see no need to contribute to national priorities. It is local democracy say these lobbyists. And they have a point. Despite the shamefully low turnout at local elections, ignorance of difficult and conflicting issues by the majority, and the wanton unwillingness of local leaders to work together to decide where and when change can happen, and where change should not happen, whether today or in two generations time local leaders show no willingnessness to work together to fund answers. . What a tragedy.
Is there an answer? The devils alliance came to birth four, even five decades ago. When civic leadership was slowly replaced in the sixties, seventies and eighties by lobby group political leadership. Can this corrosive political toxin be replaced by civic leadership loyal to local priorities whilst retaining a sense of national duty? Personally I doubt it, which is one of the reasons why I believe local plans must now be replaced on expiry by sub-regional strategic plans masterplanned, led and delivered by local new town development corporations. The malign influence of local pressure groups will then be diluted and rebalanced: the characteristic of a mature democratic model for dispute resolution.
Ian Campbell
13 January 2025
