The Times did not publish a letter I sent them following Michael Gove’s speech. It is below. But the paper kindly did publish an earlier one on 15 December 2023 (page 26), issued before he spoke. Here it is
“Sir. Something seems wrong here.. Michael Gove intends to say that councils will no longer be forced to set aside greenfield land for housebuilding. He is also expected to argue that the housing shortfall that results from this decision will incentivise councils to produce realistic plans. He wants their answers to be in existing urban areas. This formula flies in the face of postwar suburban experience, which favours suburban solutions. To avoid more unpopular suburbanism will entail building new communities on greenfield land. This is fine if there is local support for these in low-density rural areas. But this policy will never be advocated by local councils-it is way beyond their comfort zone. It looks as if the government knows that there is a housing supply problem and does not have an answer that will work.”
The second letter, also to the Times newspaper, sent on 20 December 2023 and not published addresses the largely overlooked cause of the housing supply problem: faced with conflict: whose needs take first place?
”Dear Sir, After a lifetime in property, I can endorse your thumbs-down assessment of Michael Gove’s long awaited housing policy changes. At its core is one all-important question. When conflict arises between national priorities, for example economic growth and local priorities, for example unwanted spatial change, who decides? Gove pays lip-service to the obvious answer, Parliament must decide. But he knows what voters do in the real world. They vote for candidates who say they will oppose ugly new homes; pylons across open fields; building on green belt and green fields.
His government knows growth depends upon change. But he also knows that threats to hold councils to account if they fail to do so as he is entitled to demand are empty. He is challenging local democratic legitimacy. At the end of November a High Court judge ordered Wrexham Borough Council to adopt their council’s draft local plan despite recent votes in the council not to adopt it and despite warnings councillors could be imprisoned if they again vote later this week against adoption. One Plaid Cymru member has said the threat effectively criminalises the democratic process.
If the Minister’s threats and coercion fail, and incentives lack credibility, as decades of experience says will happen again, what is the answer? Local change can only happen with local support. Whether the government’s Office of Place, new design codes and a planning super squad will turn local opposition into local support is uncertain. His department’s mission is to spread growth across the country. It cannot be done without first gaining widespread local support. “;
For the record Wrexham Council have now voted to adopt their draft local plan. Whether councillors’ resistance to local spatial change will as a result of this humiliation be different is another matter. Popular places to live and work which create premium locations when they are newly built can only happen with shrewd and far sighted local leadership. This essential leadership ingredient will not be seen in Wrexham for years ahead when there is a governance fracture about jurisdiction responsibilities on this scale. It is a spatial, environmental, and unsustainable tragedy waiting to happen. Blindness, which can be overcome, is dismal.
Ian Campbell
28 December 2023
