Let’s play ...Nimby!

With a slashed majority and a possibly imminent change of leadership, New Labour is looking distinctly wobbly.

New Labour had a taste of political mortality at this year’s general election. The poor results in the South-east have been noted at Labour HQ where the party’s number crunchers have carried out a detailed analysis of the extent to which development had an impact on results. Regenerate understands that the analysis shows that anti-development campaigners, such as Kettering’s new Conservative MP Philip Hollobone tended to perform better than average. And the swing against Labour was even bigger in the growth areas than in the rest of the region. The names of many of its losses, like Kettering and Wellingborough, sound uncannily like a roll call of the areas earmarked in John Prescott’s communities plan to boost housing supply across the region. Campaign to Protect Rural England planning director Henry Oliver says: “We understand that No 10 is very worried about the results in the growth areas – and so they should be.”

The election result will have added fuel to the debates at the recent political party conference season. It wasn’t long ago that, with Lord McAlpine as party treasurer, housebuilders were the Conservative Party’s best friends. But in recent years the Tories have increasingly found common cause with the very nimbys once famously denigrated by former environment secretary, the late Nicholas Ridley. Now Labour is far more likely to be singing tunes from the industry’s hymn sheet – to the point that earlier this year the government even used the name of the cross-sector housing alliance Campaign for More and Better Homes as the title for a consultation paper.

But with Labour’s majority slashed and chancellor Gordon Brown limbering up to take over at Number 10, housing and regeneration look set for a fresh swing of the political pendulum.

No 10 is very worried about the results in the growth areas – and so they should be

Henry Oliver, CPRE

Ian Thorn, director of the Green Issues lobbying consultancy, observes that the general election has left Labour a rump party in the South-east. “If you look at a map of the South-east, there isn’t much red there; what’s left are the towns,” he says, pointing out that Labour’s representation in the region is now confined to urban strongholds like Stevenage, Harlow and the Kent stretch of the Thames Gateway. Even in these more urban seats, Labour MPs held on with some wafer-thin majorities. And in the London stretch of the Thames Gateway, the British National Party has been making political capital out of the government’s growth plans.

Homes and votes

Overall, the party’s decision to make housing supply a central plank of its election campaign does not appear to have struck a strong chord with the would-be homeowners that it was designed to win over. Oliver argues that the government’s policy of bringing down house prices has begun to look less politically attractive since the housing market went off the boil.

Kettering MP Hollobone argues that by concentrating investment in the overheated South-east, Labour is playing fast and loose with the support of its core voters in the North and the Midlands. “In the east Midlands, Nottinghamshire wants more housing and infrastructure, but they are being told that they can’t have it, whereas we are being given housing we don’t want,” he says.

Nottinghamshire wants more housing, but is being told it can’t have it, whereas we are being given housing we don’t want

Philip Hollobone, MP

The counterpoint to the unease sparked in Labour circles by last May’s results is an emboldened Conservative Party. Tory protests that they are the party of regeneration may ring a little hollow in those areas, such as the leafier parts of Birmingham, where Conservative councils are clamping down on the redevelopment of suburban villas for higher density. But many Tories feel that the robust anti-development stance mounted by the party was a successful element in a campaign that did not work overall. “There’s a real sense that the Conservatives are in with a shout next time,” says Thorn. “It will have an influence on Conservative policy. Their attitude to development will be hugely affected by the lessons they are learning on the ground that robust campaigning against housing works.”

But Nick Jones, director of lobbying firm PPS, argues that the political outlook may be less bleak for Labour than the doom-mongers suggest. While Labour has lost most of the rural South-east seats that it picked up in 1997’s landslide victory, the party’s high command, Jones suggests, always knew that traditional Tory heartland seats such as Wellingborough and Rye were likely to slip away.

In the seats Labour retained, Jones argues, voters likely to defect because of the party’s stance on greenfield development will be counter-balanced by those attracted by the increased housing supply likely to come on stream if it delivers on its growth plans. Given that Labour has already lost many of the seats where being pro-development is a big vote loser, he suggests that there are relatively few risks in maintaining a policy of increasing housing.

Former housing minister Nick Raynsford argues that the party’s good results in the Kent stretch of the Thames Gateway, where a clutch of Labour MPs bucked the national trend by clinging onto their seats, provides evidence that the growth strategy can be good politics. “In the Thames Gateway, which is the most ambitious of the growth areas, Labour did extremely well,” he says.

The Tories have learnt that campaigning against housing works – it’s affecting development policy

Ian Thorn, Green Issues

Town halls turn Tory

But irrespective of the crystal ball gazing going on at Westminster, recent Tory county election successes are recasting the nature of the planning debate at a local level. Thorn points out that the Tories’ town hall renaissance is breeding a new generation of politicians, like Oxfordshire council leader Keith Mitchell (see left), who have won their spurs in anti-development crusades. “You have a stack of Tory authorities who have made their political fortunes on the back of pretty robust anti-development campaigning and see it as a vote winner,” he says, pointing as an example to formerly Liberal Democrat-controlled Wokingham council, where local MP John Redwood’s enthusiasm for deregulation does not appear to extend to the planning regime.

And Tory successes in May’s county elections have increased their representation on the south-west, south-east and east of England regional assemblies, entrenching their position as the largest single party on these strategic planning bodies. “By virtue of their local position, the Conservatives can influence the housing numbers coming out of the region,” says Thorn.

Oliver says the acid test of the housing supply debate over the next four years will be the outcome of the south-east and east of England regional plans, both of which are due to go under the public inquiry spotlight over the next year. The east of England assembly has already disowned its own plan. The south-east counties meanwhile have spent the past two years subtly undermining the South East England Regional Assembly’s proposals for increased housing provision, leading to the recent resignation of the body’s planning director, Mike Gwilliam.

We are in SEERA to make it work, though of course if there was a Conservative government, it would be abolished

Keith Mitchell, SEERA

SEERA’s Tory chair Keith Mitchell denies that the party is planning to bring down the body. “I would not have been elected to lead SEERA if they were going to walk away from it. There’s an agreement that we are in it to make it work, although of course if there was a Conservative government, it would be abolished.”

But he warns that there will be limits to what the Tories will put up with. “If we were pressed to provide for 36,000 [homes] or over, that would be a serious threat to the process.”

Mitchell says the more pressing issue is lack of co-ordination across Whitehall. “My immediate aim is to get the government to try to talk with one another. When we next see [housing and planning minister] Yvette Cooper, we want her to bring somebody from the Treasury and somebody from the Department for Transport.”

Meanwhile the BNP has been making unexpected political capital out of the Thames Gateway’s regeneration. Last year, the party won its first London council seat since the early 1990s by winning the Goresbrook ward in Barking and Dagenham.

The Tory opposition to development is a clear indication of their retreat from being a party of government

Nick Raynsford, ex-housing minister

The party’s local campaign literature claimed that the extra housing being developed in the area was being built for an influx of African asylum seekers. Following a by-election triggered by the resignation earlier this year of its representative, Dan Kelley, the party lost the seat.

Nevertheless, the party claimed it was satisfied with the result after winning a third of the vote in which all of the main parties stood down to give Labour a free run. “Labour will not be able to treat every ward the BNP contests in the same manner, so there is everything to play for next year,” said a spokesperson. The BNP calculates that it needs to increase its vote by just 5% to secure 10 seats on Barking and Dagenham council.

Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas said the lesson of the BNP’s success is to make a better case for regeneration: “We have become preoccupied with housing units as a result of the state’s macro-economic concerns. Locally, that has contaminated the regeneration debate, especially as it has arisen alongside growing distributional tensions about resources as the community undergoes dramatic change.”

The endangered majority

The CPRE’s Oliver suggests that May’s results and almost certain gains next year by the Tories and the BNP should give the government pause for thought – and no one more than Gordon Brown, who has been crucial in driving the growth agenda forward. A repeat of May’s losses at the next election would deprive Labour of its House of Commons majority and could rob the chancellor of his long-coveted ambition to secure a full term as prime minister.

But Labour peer and Joseph Rowntree Foundation director Lord Richard Best argues that Brown is perhaps the one British politician with the broad vision and confidence to take difficult decisions on development. “He should see that people with foresight get remembered when people who take a short-term view are forgotten. Probably more than anybody, he can bring both the economic and the social justice perspective to bear on the issues.” He is confident Brown will not lose sight of the bigger picture. “The South-east is the engine of the economy and there are risks to the whole UK economy from not providing enough housing in the region,” he says, adding that there are also political downsides to not tackling the problem of housing supply. The longer the issue is ignored the harder it will be to solve.

Raynsford agrees, adding that the Tories’ opposition to development is emblematic of what he describes as the party’s “complete abdication of responsibility”. “People expect central governments to have a national responsibility,” he says, “It’s a clear indication of their retreat from being a party of government.” The housing lobby will be crossing its fingers that the government keeps its nerve.