Mon 12 May 2008
Cameron slams Brown’s housing targets
Conservative party David Cameron today spoke of one of “the UK’s most precious treasures” – the countryside.Cameron told a group of journalists, including Show House’s Marc Da-Silva at Whitehall, that there is indeed a need for new housing across the country, but not at the expense of community and social values.
He said: “Gordon [Brown] will this week [in the Queen’s speech] talk about the need to build three million new homes by 2020. However, the reality is that we [politicians] are not housebuilders. Instead, it’s our role to encourage the construction of new homes.
“If the Tories got into power, we would encourage a system that makes building new homes far simpler. We would scrap the government’s top-down, target-driven approach, and give planning controls back to local authorities, to ensure that all plans fit within local communities.”
Cameron insisted that incentive measures would be put into place to encourage local councils to build more homes. He pointed out that increasing the number of homes would raise a lot more council tax, which in turn would be used to “boost local economies and infrastructure”.
The leader of the Opposition also criticised eco-towns and regional assemblies.
“Do we need regional assemblies? As far as we [the Tories] are concerned they are an absolute disaster. As for eco-towns – they’re a great idea. However, so many of the proposed towns are not genuinely eco-friendly, and are rather rejected schemes that have been dressed up to help the government meet their unrealistic housing targets.”
The Conservative party announced that it will soon be publishing a Green Paper on housing and planning issues.
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