Protect our green spaces: Gideon fights for local say in housing

Taunton and Wellington’s MP, Gideon Amos, called for green spaces to be protected from development in Parliament this week.

Liberal Democrat spokesperson on housing and communities, Gideon was speaking during a debate on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. He said: “We strongly support the prioritisation of brownfield development.

“The Liberal Democrats are grateful to the Government for listening to calls for better protection of greenfield land, and for taking steps through this Bill to encourage the prioritisation of brownfield.

“That will help to ensure that development is happening in the right places, on land that needs to be developed and in consultation with the communities that surround it.

“This is not about opposing growth; it is about delivering that growth sustainably and making the best use of land that has been developed before.

“Although I accept the Minister’s argument that some flexibility is needed to meet housing demand, if it results in greenfield and green spaces becoming the default, we will have failed and got the balance fundamentally wrong.

“Green spaces are essential to community wellbeing. They support mental and physical health, provide space for recreation and contribute to the identity of local places. Once lost, they cannot be replaced.

"If brownfield land is not properly prioritised, development pressure will fall on those spaces.

“We therefore welcome this step in the right direction by the Minister, but we will continue to ask the Government to go further on prioritising brownfield.”

Gideon also said the Liberal Democrats would continue to challenge the Government on planning autonomy, “because we are a party that believes in real community representation and local governance decided by local people.”

He added: “We will always fight to ensure that communities have a genuine say in how their areas are run, and that decisions are not handed down from Whitehall.

“Decisions should be made by and with local people not done to them.”

Gideon said afterwards: "The Government's planning changes mean local people now get far less say.

“It is forcing councils to issue planning permissions for thousands of houses for private house builders, whether or not they will ever get built.

“When I spoke to protesters in Wellington recently, I was clear, new homes are needed but the government have got it wrong – local people should have a real say and previously developed land should be used first.

“The homes most needed would be genuinely affordable ones, like council houses for local people which developers aren’t going to deliver.”