Building on green belt land is the key to solving the country’s housing crisis, according to Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy.
She told GB News: “Rachel Reeves [Shadow Chancellor] and I are meeting mortgage lenders later today, and we’ll be talking about the short-term measures that we need to put in place to make sure people are protected now but there’s no substitute for getting Britain building again.
“Housebuilding is forecast to fall to its lowest level since the Second World War and if we’re going to find a way out of this housing crisis and this economic crisis, we’ve got to get Britain building again, one of the ways that we’ve proposed doing that is ending the taboo in the debate around the green belt.”
In a discussion with Eamonn Holmes and Lisa Nandy, she continued: “At the moment, we’ve got an absurd situation where the government is passing a piece of legislation in the House of Lords which will make it harder through planning reforms to get homes built.
“We think that instead of declassifying the genuinely green bits of the green belt, we ought to be identifying sites like the disused petrol station in Tottenham that is classified as greenbelt and was recently turned down for an affordable housing development and get Britain building the right homes in the right places.
“And we need to put ourselves firmly on the side of the builders, not the blockers. We’ve been on the wrong side of that now for far too long.”
She added: “Large parts of the green belt aren’t green. They don’t protect the character of communities, which is what the green belt is supposed to do.”
Good to read a politician talking sense. Let’s hope that she is able to implement her ideas.
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Very few politicians truely talk sense, merely spin and Ms Nandy is no different. Tottenham does not have any green belt land within it to the best of my knoweledge but I stand to be corrected if someone can identify it for me. I am aware of significant green areas many of which are designated SSSI’s (sites of special sicentific interest) around reservoirs in the Lea Valley. London is overcrowded and for every new person there is more pollution adding to an existing problem. Perhaps Nandy is suggesting more density so her mate Khan can devise more taxes like the dishonest ULEZ which is merely a trojan horse for pay per mile road charging including EV’s. Perhaps looking back in history might be helpful in showing how new towns can work. The Victorian infrastruture is already overloaded. You have Khans pollution denying highly polluted underground which he ignores preferring to hit motorists who he calls all sorts of childish names. Government will not solve the housing crisis because the plonkers in most parties have done nothing but legislate against, slag off and generally abuse and attack those who have invested in residential property. Result these investors are leaving in vast numbers eccentuating the problem and the nutty politicians still keep talking rent controls and more anti investor legislation. Yet HAVE NOTHING TO INVEST themselve to provide proper social housing so desperately needed. The thousands and thousands of boat people add to the housing problems the Cons were going to control (big failure). So increasing problems costing more and more with no investment in housing. The Government want private investment and then knock ten bells out of investors. Mental health is on the rise and my guess most of them are politicians from the way they are ALL running the country or worst still wanting to run the Country. A personal opinion which I guess some people might not agree with such as the political groupies. Short-Termism of the current politicians keeps these problems running well into the future.
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Bang go her green credentials.
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This is classic Orwellian having cake and eating it. The world is going to end because of flatulent cows, so we need to turn farmland into forests and swamps, yet we can concrete over the countryside if it suits our agenda for importing labour. Driving some wedge in about a petrol station in Tottenham doesn’t really cut it.
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