by GREG WILLIAMS
on behalf of Dorset Labour

‘NOTHING reeks more of decline than a country that no longer knows how to build things,’ said Keir Starmer to the British Chamber of Commerce last week.

That’s certainly the case for house building, which he proceeded to focus on in his speech.

A lack of supply of new homes has driven the average house price to seven times the average income. Why? A principal reason is that the Tories have abolished house building targets. Sunak was forced to end them by a mutiny in his own party. The net result is that, in Starmer’s words, the Tories have ‘killed the dream, the aspiration of homeowning for a whole generation’.

Do we recognise this picture here in the Vale? We frequently hear about how people born here cannot afford to live here once they leave school or university. While we could perhaps all agree there’s a problem, I doubt we would coalesce around a solution.

Take the pages of this newspaper. It often features stories about planning applications being rejected – and many with good reason. But how many of us could genuinely claim to being a BIIMBY – build it in my back yard? Do we not know how to build things, as Starmer says, or rather do we just not want to build things where we must see them?

Difficult questions. Now, how about some solutions. A Labour government would bring back house building targets – but with some crucial changes.

Firstly, Labour will look at implementing more collective targets that apply across local authority areas. Currently co-operation is guided by a ‘duty to co-operate’ principle that causes more confusion than good. Take the example of Dorset’s previous housebuilding target before they were abolished. No one could agree on the number, because no one was sure how many houses Dorset would have to ‘take’ when Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole couldn’t fit in their allocation. Paralysis prevailed.

Secondly, under Labour local authorities would have more flexibility as to how they meet their targets. This includes greater ability to build on green belt. Starmer had an example of a council in Kent that built on a school playing field because the car park it originally planned to build on was in greenbelt. The playing field was not. Inflexibility thus leads to madness.

Thirdly, a Labour government will remove the veto effectively used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground. Currently, it is too easy to amass landbanks that reduce the supply of developable land and drive up the costs of new homes.

Commentators have accused Starmer of being, ironically, too conservative in policy pronouncements to date. His ambition on housing shows this is far from true.