While the festive celebrations are well underway locally, Parliamentary business in Westminster has continued at pace. In the past week there have been two significant announcements from the Government.
Firstly, the Government published a White Paper on local government reorganisation.
As many of you will know, I am firmly of the belief that local authorities know their areas best and am supportive of more powers being devolved down to them to ensure the right decisions are made for our communities. However, what the Labour Government is proposing is a top-down removal of local democracy, which will abolish Sevenoaks District Council and replace it with a large unitary authority covering over 500,000 people, and quite likely based in Maidstone.
This move is far from increasing local democracy, and instead will take power and democracy further away from us. These are early days, and I will be looking into this more closely alongside your local councillors, but I am extremely concerned what this means for us in Sevenoaks, Swanley and the surrounding villages.
Secondly, the Government published the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and confirmed the mandatory house-building target for our district. The new homes target is now even higher than initially indicated by the Government in October, and stands at 1,149 homes a year. This is an increase of 63% on the previous target, and means building more homes than the size of the Sevenoaks Quarry site, every single year.
Whilst Labour talk about building on the “Grey Belt”, the definition is actually much wider than this and includes Green Belt land that is considered not to “strongly contribute” to preventing urban sprawl, towns merging into each other or to preserve the setting or character of a historic town. It also excludes reference to the existing protection of “safeguarding the countryside from encroachment” and will therefore open up vast swathes of Green Belt land to development.
While it is of course imperative that we build homes for local people, we must also protect the Green Belt, and ensure new homes come with the right infrastructure for communities living here.
And finally, this is not joined up thinking. On the one hand, the Government are requiring the district council to spend hundreds of thousands of tax payers money re-doing work on the Local Plan to meet a new target and rules, yet they are also planning to abolish the very same council - quite possibly before the Local Plan can be submitted for examination. I will continue to oppose the proposals and will keep you updated with developments.
As this will be my last newsletter of the year, I want to wish all readers a very merry Christmas. Your ongoing support means so much to me and I hope you all enjoy the festivities taking place across our community.
Laura Trott
MP for Sevenoaks and Swanley
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