She also re-stated proposals for controversial ‘grey belt’ proposals at the monster property gathering UKREiiF
Image: How to be a Minister (2014) By former Labour Cabinet Minister John Hutton, and Leigh Lewis
I picked up some things from the transcript of Ms Rayner’s speech (see link below) to the UKREiiF Conference.
This is the Leeds conference where the future of Cambridge is also being discussed.
For the New Towns – for which developers and land speculators are buzzing around Cambridge to snap up sites for, the criteria were set out by the Labour’s Deputy Leader.
- More social and affordable homes – with a gold standard aim of 40 percent
- Buildings with character, in tree-lined streets that fit in with nearby areas
- Design that pays attention to local history and identity
- Planning for for the future with good links to town and city centres
- Guaranteed public transport and public services, from doctors’ surgeries to schools
- Access to nature, parks, and places for children to play.
This has to mean a complete overhaul of local government in England – the above cannot be achieved under the existing system
Note the last Labour Government began experimenting with bringing disparate and separate public services together in a policy called ‘Total Place’ – one abolished by the incoming Coalition. The Secretary of State who brought in that policy – John Denham, has since called for a revamped version of that policy.
Looking at each one in turn…:
For 1, we know developers will lobby the living daylights out of this policy to get out of providing council houses, social housing, and affordable housing. After all, what is affordable for some is unaffordable for another. Hence Labour have said they would get rid of that definition. (See also the briefing on affordable housing from the House of Commons Library – made available to all MPs.)
Above – What is affordable housing? (2023) HoC Library
On 2, expect lobbyists from the design and architecture industry (especially the international firms and big names) to lobby intensively on this one – along with the volume/mass house building oligopoly. Apart from their appeal to ‘unnecessary costs for business’, it’s actually very difficult to legislate for ‘character’. As Michael Gove is finding out. Furthermore, there’s a greater challenge in separating calls for ‘more beautiful buildings’ from the culture wars that are breaking out within that vicinity. It should be possible to appreciate beautiful, awe-inspiring buildings built in previous eras without harping back to the political structures and prejudices of that era.
On 3, again expect ‘costs to business’ to raise its head vs the memes doing the rounds about identikit 20th and 21st century designs that look the same irrespective of what the building is actually used for. Note the designs of slums and working class housing were hardly architectural masterpieces – especially those that designed out air circulation and ended up being death traps for the inhabitants – as the sanitary reports of the eras tell us. At the same time, the older buildings that have survived the test of time (and politics!) reveal the materials that were available locally. For example in/around Cambridge our local brick colour is pale. (Hence big rows broke out in the 1800s when some prominent buildings were constructed in red bricks not made locally – at a time when brick-making was a local industry). Go to the Cotswolds and the West Country and you can see how the local stone combined with the enforcement of using local materials has shaped building there. Go to the old industrial areas of the midlands and you can see the row-upon-row of red-bricked houses built in the 1800s and early 1900s that we tend not to see much of in Cambridge (There are a few exceptions). The challenge then is incentivising this in the system.
On 4, I think this is where the separation of transport planning from built environment planning seems to have caused more problems than it has solved. Especially for Cambridge and its fragmented governance structure. Ditto the provision of public transport services. Will we see a renaissance in tram and light rail construction? That depends on how much power the next government keeps within The Treasury. Few combined authorities have the resources or legal powers to bring in new tram and light rail systems. Will this change? It will need new legislation to do so.
On 5, Local councils are powerless in designing in decent public transport infrastructure when the compulsory use of private companies and the financial restrictions imposed by previous governments mean that communities are at the mercy of profit-seeking private companies owned by international institutions with zero incentive to put communities first. On local primary healthcare – doctors, dentists, and other clinics, there’s no point in building the facilities if you cannot afford to pay the professionals to staff them. What’s the skills and training plan to fill the gaps? Where is the lifelong learning plan to pay people to retrain and switch careers? This is a particularly complex one for policy makers tied up in ideological knots, while at the same time it should be relatively straight forward for those who make the case for ‘more flexible labour markets’. Paying people to retrain, covering their retraining costs, and ensuring that the jobs are well-paid is one way to deal with the ‘rigidities in labour markets’. Especially if housing markets are so broken that people are unable to move ( eg due to family commitments, but would jump at the opportunity to switch careers locally)
On 6, one way to look at this policy is from the perspective of a ten year old. How would you design a local street map with local play areas that were safe enough for parents to let their parents go out and play without worrying that they’ll get run over by a passing car? Furthermore, what would transport networks look like if, instead of being designed for the A-to-B predominantly older male commuter, they were designed for living – enabling people to get to places of leisure, relaxation, sport, and so on? (Rail/light rail stops at the edge of country parks?)
“And on Grey-belt?”
According to The Planner back in April 2024 the five golden rules are
- Brownfield land located in the green belt must be developed first – it must be prioritised for development.
- “Poor-quality and ugly areas of the green belt” prioritised over nature-rich, environmentally valuable land in the green belt for development.
- Affordable homes: Plans must target at least 50 per cent affordable housing delivery when land is released.
- Boost public services and infrastructure: Plans must boost public services and local infrastructure, such as more school and nursery places, new health centres and GP appointments.
- Improve genuine green spaces: Labour rules out building on genuine nature spots and requires plans to include improvements to existing green spaces, making them accessible to the public, with new woodland, parks and playing fields. Plans should meet high environmental standards.
Note there are issues with all of these – including the incentive for landowners and speculators to deliberately neglect land so that it falls within the ‘ugly’ category and thus become eligible for development.
This means legislation on land value capture is essential – capital gains taxation is not enough (especially given the succession of cuts, and the inability of local government to get the receipts to pay for new and improved infrastructure).
In the longer term, substantially improving the standing of local and regional government in England is essential. All the buzzword terms on ‘capacity building’ apply – only this time a future government must not make the mistakes of previous ones. i.e. one that built a regional tier separate to a local tier but one that was still dependent on the patronage of ministers. Hence why Messrs Pickles and co were able to zap that entire tier with a few signatures in 2010. Instead I think future ministers would be better at building up the capacity of, and calibre of people working within local and regional government – and having a clear and predictable set of criteria that when met allow for more powers and more funding to be devolved. Criteria that also make sense to the general public.
It will be interesting to see how local Labour councillors and MP-candidates interpret the new national policies and state how they think they will be applied locally. Not least dealing with cases such as the Romsey Labour Club – whose party-political neighbour has put half of its site up for sale.
Food for thought?
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Below – Can Local Government Survive? From the Labour Co-ordinating Committee 1981
The Cambridge Town Owl 