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You’d be forgiven for thinking it all feels a bit mid 20th century. European leaders including Keir Starmer have met in Paris for an emergency summit about defence while the utopian promise of Labour’s new towns offers glimmers of hope for Britain’s future.
Support – in the form of cash – is expected to be announced in Rachel Reeves’s spending review.
Is Labour right to do this? I think so. The new towns project is an incredibly rational one even though it is being framed as a war between Yimbys and Nimbys both in and outside of Westminster.
This mass building drive was enabled by planning reform and the New Towns Act of 1946.
Similarly, Stevenage was turned from a sleepy market town into a busy hub, close to both London and the Hertfordshire countryside.
If Labour is to fulfil the promise of easing the housing crisis, then the party really needs its plan to create “the next generation of new towns” across England to work.
Choosing the right locations will also be crucial. New towns need to be places where jobs can be created if they do not already exist, and they need to be well-connected to other economic centres.
There has been much speculation about where these new settlements will be built. Residents across the country worry about poor quality or ugly homes being built near them without the infrastructure to support them.
Keir Starmer has regularly decreed that Labour will be the party of “the builders, not the blockers”. The Prime Minister is determined to deliver planning reform and do what the Tories could not because of their own Nimby backbenchers who feared difficult conversations about building on the green belt.
The historic village that could become a new town - but locals aren't convinced
Read MoreHowever, the awkward truth is that while some people do block new developments for the wrong reasons – they are snobbish about social housing or modern building, for example – many people are too quickly dismissed as Nimbys when they raise legitimate planning concerns.
A mother-of-two in her late fifties was worried her children could not afford to live near her but did not want green space destroyed to build what she feared would be sub-standard housing.
Labour must confront two difficult realities. The first is that we have to build, which might be on underused green spaces. The second is that there has been a crisis of quality and design in Britain’s new buildings over the past two decades which has undermined public support for new housing.
The focus on “beautiful” place-making is also included in Labour’s update. The Government says it will “create beautiful communities, provide affordable homes, and deliver much-needed infrastructure, including schools and nurseries, GP surgeries, and bus routes”. It suggests Number 10 Yimbys are aware that riding roughshod over local concerns won’t get them very far.
But instead of making this a reductive discussion about Nimbys and Yimbys, Starmer, Reeves and Rayner should be appealing to older homeowners – the people most likely to vote against new development – and ask them whether they are worried about their children and grandchildren and where they will live in the future.
Then the big question will be whether Labour can bring everything and everyone together – including finding construction workers to make up our current shortage and getting planning reform over the line – quickly enough. By the time these new town locations are confirmed, it will be almost a year since Labour won the election. That is one year down, and just four left to hit the 1.5 million new homes target.
Key housing
However, as always, the devil is in the detail. If you look at these numbers a little more closely, you will see that GDP per head fell by 0.1 per cent. GDP per head is, broadly speaking, a good measure of living standards and income as it reflects economic output per person.
Growth is good. Britain’s economy needs it. But Labour’s big challenge will be making sure everyone benefits.
If you’re interested in new towns, have a read of my reporting on this topic:
My visit to Taplow My interview with Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook in Stevenage My report about suggestions for new town locations from the think tank UK Day OneThis week’s question is a follow-up to a question submitted by a reader a few weeks ago. She is currently the victim of her neighbour’s severe anti-social behaviour at her leasehold flat in north London. Sadly, since she last wrote in, the situation has escalated, and her neighbour has been arrested. This has not resulted in council action against the other resident, however.
Sadly, the support for victims of anti-social behaviour is not as robust as it should be. In law, landlords are not deemed responsible for the behaviour of their tenants. This reader, like so many others, finds herself falling between several stalls, none of which are equipped to provide adequate support. If a local council has failed to act after three reports of anti-social behaviour, the next step is to submit a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.
Send in your questions to: @Victoria_Spratt, on X, formerly Twitter, @vicky.spratt on Instagram or via email vicky.spratt@inews.co.uk
Vicky’s pick
A few years ago, the former Love Island winner got into hot water after she said: “If you want something enough you can achieve it… It just depends on what lengths you want to go to get where you want to be in the future.” The influencer and businesswoman has built an empire and gained millions of followers in the process.
Watching her documentary, I couldn’t blame the majority (57 per cent) of Gen Z members for saying they’d prefer to be influencers than do other jobs. Molly-Mae has a large house and autonomy. It’s a far cry from where many of her peers are stuck living with their parents or renting privately. The problem is, not everyone can be Molly-Mae.
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