Sam Stafford's Blog

Regular readers will know that I have taken an interest in the perfect planning storm that has been brewing in Cheshire East. I felt strangely compelled, therefore, to comment upon today's intervention by Crewe & Nantwich MP Edward Timpson in the Crewe Chronicle. Question: Planning in Cheshire East has become the biggest political football in recent times. Labour blames deliberate government policy via the National Planning Policy Framework; Cheshire East Council blame the Planning Inspectorate; Ukip say Cheshire East and the Government are both complicit in turning South Cheshire into a dumping zone for houses because it is a ‘soft target’. Who is to blame? EDWARD TIMPSON: I’m not really interested in the blame game. The fact is, we need more houses nationwide – not just in Cheshire – but we must make sure they are appropriately located. The Government doesn’t say they have to be in this village or that one. So that’s a nonsense. Developers decide on the location...

The politics of regional policy tends to sway from one end of the spectrum to the other as opposition parties win and then lose general elections. The 2010 general election, for example, saw a Conservative ‘localism’ agenda that promised to sweep away of Labour’s ‘centralising’ regional tier. The 2015 election promises to be a little less adversarial, however, as a consensus appears to be forming around the north, around the importance of cities, and around the importance of city regions. Consider, for example, that the last few months has seen: Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ speech in June, which ‘ starts a conversation about serious devolution of powers and budgets for any city that wants to move to a new model of city government - and have an elected Mayor’ ; Labour peer Lord Adonis’ Review Mending the Fractured Economy: Smarter State, Better Jobs , which set out reform to empower city and county regions; and   Liberal Democrat Deputy...

Has the Housing Minister watched Anchorman 2 this week I wonder. Less than three weeks after proudly suggesting that nimbies have " had their day " it has appears to have dawned upon Brandon Lewis that this might not be the case and that, instead, the nimby lobby, championed as it is by the Daily Telegraph, is a politically powerful one. Consider the following: 7 August . Government launches a £5 million fund to unlock 100 brownfield sites for new homes". 11 August . Daily Telegraph reports that "the number of new homes built on the protected Green Belt has more than doubled since the Coalition was formed." 13 August . "Ministers unveil £200million fund to protect the countryside from building." As commentators Colin Wiles and Philip Barnes pointed out on Twitter, even if fifteen homes are built in the Green Belt every day (as The Telegraph reported) it would take 100 years to build on 1% of the Green Belt and 9,000 years (at 30 ...