December 16th, 2024.



Lewes District Council Green Party councillors have warned of the risk to Lewes district’s green spaces over government plans to introduce immediate mandatory housing targets for local authorities, while telling councils to ‘exhaust all options’ when it comes to building new homes.

Publishing its response to a consultation on its own proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) last week, the government said that local councils now have 12 weeks to come up with timetables for new housebuilding plans, while threatening to intervene and take over local housing plans in some cases.

It also said that councils must allow house building on green-belt land, which will be allowed if other options have been exhausted.

Lewes district councillor Charlotte Keenan said: “It’s truly shocking that the government is introducing immediate mandatory housing targets, while telling councils that they may have to allow house-building on green-belt land.

“The real housing crisis is the number of people living in short-term accommodation and unable to find social housing, and young families unable to afford a first home.

“These new rules just give fat-cat developers the green light to build expensive and unneeded executive homes over much-needed countryside.”

Lewes district councillor Paul Keene added: “It's an insult to communities to present this as a binary choice between 'builders and blockers'. Local people are capable of understanding that there is a balance to be struck: homes, food, nature, local energy, infrastructure and flood risk management all need to be considered when looking at land use.

“But the new Labour government doesn't want balance. It wants a free-for-all for developers, which won't even solve the affordability crisis in housing.”

Lewes District Green Party is urging concerned local residents to tell deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, of their worries over sky-high housing targets by signing the  petition HERE.

www.lewes.greenparty.org.uk


Pictured: Councillors Paul Keene (far left) and Charlotte Keenan (second left), with fellow Lewes District Council Green councillors.