Gideon's MP Column

Housing and development are always a hot topic, both in Taunton and Wellington and nationally.

Fantastic progress in healthcare and longer lifespans now enjoyed are something to celebrate. The fact that these lead to the need for our housing stock to accommodate a whole extra generation isn’t always so welcome. 

The trend towards smaller household sizes - down from six at the beginning of the previous century to an average of less than two people per house today - also drives up demand, as does migration to the Southwest, the biggest group being people from elsewhere in the UK, such as those retiring here from the Southeast. 

And the international migrants we do have here are essential to keeping our health and social care services going. 

But the real flaw in the government’s thinking is prioritising market demand for housing over and above real genuine need. 

Too often what is proposed is, in the words of Protect Wellington, “the wrong homes in the wrong places”. Development anywhere and everywhere with public voices cut out of the discussion. 

Development in the setting of the Monument – an icon of Wellington – is one such example, which is why I have taken the unusual step of objecting to it.

Government rules which now prevent your locally-elected planning committee councillors deciding key applications are a dangerous undermining of local democracy at a time when it most needs to be strengthened. 

Councillors are being banned from deciding reserved matters and householder applications and must now ask the Secretary of State before they’ll be allowed to refuse any for over 150 homes. 

To make things worse, local youngsters see homes being built they’ll never be able to afford. 

That’s why it was a Liberal Government which invented council houses. If the current government really wanted to help then, instead of foisting thousands of permissions for unbuilt private housing on to us, it would instead allow my Somerset Lib Dem councillor colleagues to build council houses once again. 

Having already started by delivering the first new council houses in part of the county for a generation, our administration are desperate to go further. 

And with 13,000 households on the waiting list in Somerset, I have repeatedly urged Ministers to allow the council to build more.

This week I asked the Housing Minister, if he won’t increase funding for such homes (from the current £3.9 billion per year to the £6 billion per year in our manifesto), to instead write off historic costs of council housebuilding. 

This one move would build more than 600 new council houses in the county and more across the country, boosting jobs, the economy and people’s futures. 

I also used a recent debate in Parliament to thank police and Somerset Council’s Trading Standards officers for the crackdown on illegally trading shops which I’ve been seeking. Several key premises have been shut down which is good to see. However, the law remains unwieldy and overly demanding of officer time.

That’s why I’m proposing an amendment which, upon evidence of illegal sales, would make immediate closure the norm, and would see landlords who persistently fail to keep out the criminals forfeit their property to the council, either temporarily or permanently. 

With hospitality and small businesses being taxed over the edge by this government, it’s great to see our local town centres doing relatively well. That’s due to the ingenuity and hard work of so many who run our small businesses.

The spring weather has seen the Taunton Independent Market every fortnight on Castle Green buzzing once again and there’s potential good news too on the former Debenhams store building. 

Having pushed the former owners to sell the building to make it available to be brought back into use, I congratulate Chestnut Group for taking it on. Let’s all hope their plans now come to fruition.