Ed Miliband is in Stevenage today to announce more detail around Labour's policy of allowing towns & cities to build houses on land within neighbouring authorities.This policy has a number of serious implications for areas such as Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire & Bedfordshire where Labour councils want to expand Luton, Oxford & Stevenage out into open countryside.Mr Miliband says local communities will have a say in his 'Right to Grow' policy - he said this morning: “Of course it is right that local communities have a say about where housing goes. But councils cannot be allowed to frustrate continually the efforts of others councils to get homes built. So the next Labour government will unblock this planning process and unlock the potential to build tens of thousands of new homes where they are needed.”I find this statement hard to square with the headline announced by Labour - that towns & cities will acquire the right to build in neighbouring authorities back-yards, it is not the council's who are frustrating some development, they are merely reflecting the views of their residentsSo in Central Bedfordshire we have spent 10 years & £5 million trying to deliver a joint local plan with Luton, but were frustrated on the final lap.We have agreed thousands of new homes, of which a significant proportion would meet Luton's housing need - to now see proposals by the Labour Leader to tear up proper planning process & sustainable housing development deals is, as I described it on the BBC this morning, a diabolical liberty.
