News

I joined hundreds of residents of the Caddington and Slip End area of the Luton South constituency this morning who braved the cold to protest at the proposed building on green belt land to the west of Luton - with a massive 5,500 home development.  The event was organized by a local campaigning group called Case4, and by the turnout it certainly looks like they are accurately reflecting the feeling of the local community. 

As readers of this website will know, I have been leading a campaigning against unwanted development on green belt all around Luton for several years now, and I am proud that the Conservative Party has adopted a policy that would make the pressure to build on our beloved green belt go away by scrapping Labour's centrally imposed housing development targets that are the result of the ridiculous spatial strategies.

The Shadow Environment Minister, Caroline Spelman MP, has also written to all councils encouraging them to put any controversial development plans on hold until after the next election by which time a new government will be in place, the present housing targets will be scrapped, and the decisions on such things will be put back in local hands rather than imposed by central government bureaucrats.

We all know we need more housing, but I believe we should be focusing on the many brownfield sites in the centre of Luton first, and on filling the nearly two thousand empty homes already in Luton!  Speaking to people yesterday, they were similarly aware of the need for more housing and would not object to some smaller proposals to add housing incrementally and organically to their villages in a manner that enhanced their local community and enabled the sustainability of local schools, shops and services.  But the imposition of 5,500 homes is just way too much. 

A lot of anger has been directed against the developers.  I don’t believe we should blame developers for taking advantage of a bad government policy - and I am encouraging all developers interested in the Luton area to instead focus their efforts and their money on building houses where local people actually want them.   And that is not on green belt land, but on brownfield sites in the centre of Luton such as on the currently vacant acres of land that used to be occupied by the old Vauxhall factory.