NEW Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised to “tread more lightly” on our lives. But “on England’s [and the rest of the UK’s] green and pleasant land?” maybe not so much, if Rachel Reeves’s first speech as Chancellor is anything to go by. For she has vowed to reform the nation’s “timid” planning system with, among other things, orders for local councils to favour, rather than fight, building projects on green belt land deemed to be “grey belt” because it is regarded as lower quality.
Bring me my mixer of cement! Bring me my slabs of brick! Bring me my trowel! O walls, unfold! Bring me my hordes of first-time buyers ! Which, if you’re trying to get your foot on the property ladder , all sounds great. But a few words of caution, starting with the reality that unless the Government subsidises developers to keep costs down, many new builds in a half decent area will still be unaffordable for young people. Secondly, if Labour is as serious about environmental issues as it says it is, then how will building on fields or wasteland “with little intrinsic beauty” sit with that? A “film trailer” released five years ago by The Wildlife Trusts used Wind In The Willows characters to warn of the environmental damage caused by building projects — showing Mole’s habitat being concreted and Mr Toad motorcycling over mounds of rubbish.
Yet here is an initiative that, if it comes to fruition, will force nature out of the area. And what’s the betting.