Angela Rayner’s latest bonkers plot is just cruel revenge on anyone who ever voted Tory.uk
Express reporter and Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles warns that the Deputy PM is shooting herself – and her party – in the foot with her new housing plans.
Express reporter Mieka Smiles has slammed Angela Rayner’s house building plans (Image: Getty)
Angela Rayner really does seem to think she’s the big guy with her ruthless plans to bulldoze the countryside.
You can almost imagine the conversation between her and Keir as pre-election they plotted to get revenge on anyone who’d ever so much as spoken to a Tory.
“Don’t worry Keir – stuff all those horrible Tory-voting NIMBYs,” you can imagine her saying as they plotted where to wallop 1.5million new homes over the course of the next five years.
She’s made a few blunders along the way – including her mortifying car crash TV interview last week, which saw her admit that the UK has “plenty of housing,” which, of course, totally negated the actual need for the policy.
But just as Rayner’s blushes are subsiding, the housing secretary is getting pushed back centrestage today to repeat her ‘build, build, build’ mantra as she announces her plans in full.
Of course it’s the traditionally Tory-voting areas that will bear the brunt of this, as she’s expected to unveil a new National Policy Framework (NPPF) intended to help Labour cement over the Home Counties with thousands of new estates.
Angela Rayner says there’s ‘plenty of housing’ in UK
Angela Rayner’s plan won’t just impact the posh Home Counties says Mieka Smiles (Image: Getty)
Who is going to live in these houses? This type of land – on the outskirts of posh, leafy areas – will surely come at a premium out of the grasp of most first-time buyers. Any developer will simply be looking to make as much as they can out of the opportunity they’ve been gifted by Rayner.
She tweeted this morning that she “will not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes and deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”.
Well, I tell you something for nothing – leafy corners of the Home Counties won’t be the location for affordable or social housing. The developers will be simply rubbing their hands together in glee.
Rayner is also expected to go even further by broadening the definition of what it classes ‘low quality Green Belt’ or ‘grey belt’ – the so-called poor-quality, underutilised areas of the Green Belt such as scrubland, wastelands and former car parks.
Of course green campaigners are furious about this, as will be those who don’t want to see their towns and villages sprawl on forever with ugly new builds.
But what is going under the radar here are the areas that don’t have Green Belt protections – i.e. the vast majority of the rest of the country.
As a local councillor I represent an area that borders beautiful green countryside that developers have been trying – and thankfully failing – to build over for very many years as they’re just not willing to provide the infrastructure needed: the right roads, the right schools, the health services, the shops.
And all Rayner’s plans will do is give every planning department across the country free rein to recommend these ill-thought-out mega estates on the edges of towns. If the Green Belt is no longer sacred, then God help other important green zones that provide a sometimes necessary full stop to endless urban sprawl.
What is now clear is that Rayner is happy to ride roughshod over the Home Counties, as they serve her party little purpose.
But I think Rayner should very much care about areas like mine where at the last election they won by a slither of just 214 votes – which means that tearing up the planning rules to stick it to Tory voters might not be quite as clever as she thinks.
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