When will Raab stand up for Elmbridge against his Government's ridiculous housing targets?
Residents across Elmbridge have reacted with anger to claims from Dominic Raab last week which show he doesn’t seem to care that his Government is imposing arbitrary housing targets on local councils with another infamous algorithm.
Local council leaders have held several meetings with Raab to bring these issues to his attention and get him to stand up for Elmbridge in Government. However, to date he appears not to have done anything to protect our green spaces from his Government’s top-down planning policies.
Liberal Democrat Councillor, Shweta Kapadia, said “Will Dominic Raab follow the good example being set by ten of his Conservative colleagues in Kent, as well as former Prime Minister Theresa May, who have been campaigning against the imposed housing targets?”
“Dominic Raab’s Conservative Government has swept away localism and introduced top-down, Government imposed housing targets for all councils. Under the new algorithm, Elmbridge will be expected to build 774 homes a year putting at risk the character of our existing built up areas and threatening our Green Belt.”
There have now been calls by local residents for Dominic Raab to publish his correspondence with the Housing Minister to prove that he’s been protesting against these housing numbers for Elmbridge.
Elmbridge’s Strategic Housing Market Assessment (2016) showed a housing need of 474 dwellings per annum which increased to 623 when the Conservative Government introduced a new standard methodology for calculating housing need in 2018. Now this Government has created a new algorithm, giving a need of 774 dwellings per annum in Elmbridge.
Dominic Raab and his Tory councillors continue to waste time pushing myths instead of campaigning against these Government actions like the Lib Dem/Residents Association Administration has been doing. Elmbridge’s Conservatives should be holding the Government to account and representing our community’s views, not playing politics with planning at the expense of our environment and quality of life.
If they don’t, voters can hold them to account at the local elections next May.
Further information
These figures are being imposed on every Council – Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour – those with local plans and those without. What’s more – the Government’s algorithm is proposing more homes in the South and fewer homes in the North – which goes against its own Levelling up agenda. More information is available here.