Angela Rayner's planning reforms will cover Britain in 'soulless settlements' of ugly houses, Tories warn as Starmer vows to use AI to speed up building
Labour 's vow to massively speed and scale up housebuilding will result in 'soulless settlements' sprawling across the countryside, a senior Tory warns today.
Shadow Housing Secretary Kevin Hollinrake warned that measures being championed by Angela Rayner would lead to increased urban sprawl of concrete houses.
He took aim at plans to use the Planning and Infrastructure Bill - which is being debated today and tomorrow in Parliament - to reclassify some of the green belt as lower-quality 'grey belt' land suitable for development.
Ms Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, is fronting the Government's plans for 1.5 million new homes by 2029.
Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Hollinrake said the bill is 'blatantly encouraging urban sprawl, increasing housing targets for councils outside of towns and cities whilst easing targets for cities like London '.
He said: 'This will just create new, soulless settlements, take away our green belt, and make residents feel trapped and isolated hours away from their friends, work, and the amenities they need.'
It came as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer used a speech to vow to use AI to speed up the planning system.
He told London tech Week that a system called Extract 'takes old, handwritten planning documents and puts them into digital form in seconds', increasing the rate at which they are processed twentyfold.
'It's a huge productivity boost and we want to roll that out,' the PM added.
'It doesn't just show that the government can innovate, it also means faster planning decisions, which I think comes as a relief to many people in this room and beyond—both in AI and in British business more broadly.
'And of course, it's money-saved for councils, so they can spend their money on other things. It turns into more growth and more opportunity.'
However Mr Hollinrake argued that rather than building on the green belt, Labour should be 'gently densifying our existing towns and cities to resurrect lost communities'.
'This requires beautiful new homes and developments that bring nature and the life it brings back into the hearts of our towns and cities,' he wrote.
'Look at some of the most beautiful parts of our great cities, like Marylebone in London, with mid-rise, six-storey mansion blocks. No one would complain if this beautiful architecture were repeated elsewhere.
'But Labour showed it doesn't care for creating beautiful, connected communities when they shut the Office for Place.
'With Nicholas Boys Smith at the helm, it made sure new developments focused on building beautiful, green and connected communities.
'Without the Office for Place, there is nothing protecting communities from the bland, cookie-cutter houses that foster isolation.
'One and a half million new homes is an admirable ambition, but it means nothing if you don't build the communities and homes people actually want.'
Last month Ms Rayner rejected claimed that Labour will be 'bulldozing over the greenbelt' or compromising on protections for nature to build homes faster.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that proposals to give a boost to smaller developers, which will ease the requirements for them to pay to boost nature habitats, were 'pragmatism' and that the Government will be able to 'protect nature at the same time'.
The Government has set out proposals to cut red tape and for planning decisions to be shifted away from councillors and towards expert officers as part of efforts to meet Labour's pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2029-30.
Trained planning officers rather than committees of elected councillors will be responsible for deciding on developments of up to nine homes under the plans, as well as most minor and technical applications.
The Government is considering 'streamlining' requirements on biodiversity net gain including the option of a full exemption for those minor developments.
Sites with 10 to 49 homes would fall in a new category for medium-sized developments with fewer costs, simplified biodiversity net gain rules and an exemption from the building safety levy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
20 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Diane Abbott is pushing the Left's biggest myth about immigration
The Labour Left were always bound to loathe Sir Keir Starmer's recent speech about the downsides of mass immigration. All the same, one of their objections to it strikes me as somewhat peculiar. At a rally on Saturday, the veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott thundered that Sir Keir's speech was 'nonsense' – because, as she stoutly reminded her audience, 'immigrants built this land'. Stirring stuff. I can see only one small problem. It's not strictly true, is it? Clearly Ms Abbott disagrees. Indeed, she proudly declared that her own parents 'helped to build this country'. As she herself acknowledged, though, they only arrived here from Jamaica in the 1950s. What precisely does Ms Abbott think Britain looked like, before her parents' ship pulled in? A barren, primitive, uncivilised wilderness, whose humble natives dwelt in bushes and subsisted on nettles and raw shrew? Did her parents look around, sigh, and then patiently set about erecting St Paul's Cathedral and Blenheim Palace? I'm not convinced that they did. In fact, I'm reasonably sure that most of this country was built a fair bit earlier, largely by people who were born in it. This is because, until quite recently, only a very small percentage of the population was born abroad. Between 1951 and 2001, the average annual net immigration figure was 7,800. In 2023, by contrast, it was 906,000. It doesn't take a mathematician of Ms Abbott's stature to recognise that this is quite a sharp increase. Still, I don't mean to pick on her. She's far from alone. In recent years, any number of Left-wing politicians and pundits have taken to pushing the line that 'immigrants built Britain'. On last week's edition of the BBC's Question Time, for example, the retired trade union leader Mark Serwotka informed viewers that Britain is only 'the great country it is because of centuries of immigration'. From the Left's point of view, I suppose I can see this tactic's advantages. Any time a voter dares suggest that net immigration of almost a million a year is a touch on the high side, and possibly not entirely sustainable in the longer term, shut them up by telling them that a) it's always been like this, and b) they should be grateful. The risk, though, is that some voters might feel a tiny bit insulted. Because the claim that 'immigrants built Britain' implies that the natives were so ignorant, lazy and useless, they achieved nothing until their superiors arrived from abroad to lift them out of savagery. Come to think of it, I'm reasonably sure that the Left used to have a word for that type of attitude. It was 'colonialism'. If you want a picture of the present... It was a bright cold day in June, and Winston Smith had just sat down at his desk in the Ministry of Truth. This morning he had an important job to do. A dangerous book urgently needed to be memory-holed. It was entitled Nineteen Eighty-Four. For decades, Nineteen Eighty-Four had been acclaimed as a landmark work of literature. Suddenly, however, it had been found to contain the most sickening thoughtcrime. The person who had made this shocking discovery was an American novelist named Dolen Perkins-Valdez. In a foreword she'd been commissioned to write for the book's latest edition, she declared that its main character exhibited attitudes towards women that were appallingly 'problematic'. Not only that, but the book didn't feature any characters who were black. 'A sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find,' she wrote, 'in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity.' Privately, Winston suspected that the reason the book did not speak much to race and ethnicity was that it had been written on a Scottish island by an Edwardian Englishman in the late 1940s. That was probably also the reason why none of its characters identified as genderqueer or pansexual, and why none of them had glued their buttocks to the M25 in support of puberty blockers for Palestine. But it was not Winston's place to make excuses for crimethink. In any case, he was used to such tasks. Not long ago he had been presented with the complete works of a children's author named Roald Dahl, and ordered to replace the entire text of each book with the endlessly repeated phrase 'BE KIND'. Had it been up to him, Winston would have been perfectly willing to rectify the text of Nineteen Eighty-Four, until all traces of crimethink had been eliminated. He could have ensured that it contained the correct number of characters who were 2SLGBTQIA+, neurodivergent or of Colour, and that they all expressed the officially mandated opinions about Islamophobia and net zero. The Ministry, however, had decided that there was no time. Better just to drop the offending object down the memory hole, and move swiftly on to his next task. This one was going to be tough. According to reports, there was a new TV adaptation of Harry Potter on the way, and the cast had completely failed to denounce JK Rowling. Winston had a lot of unpersoning to do.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Lindisfarne Festival to go ahead after new organiser appointed
An annual coastal music festival will go ahead despite uncertainty over its organisers, it has been behind the Lindisfarne Festival in Northumberland have appointed its founder, Conleth Maenpaa, to ensure it goes ahead on the last weekend of decision came after original organiser Wannasee, which was behind numerous festivals in the region, announced it was speaking to liquidators and cancelling other news has been welcomed by ticketholders and businesses, with headliners at the Beal Farm event set to include Armand Van Halen, Doves and The Waterboys. Mr Maenpaa, who organised the first eight Lindisfarne Festivals, told the BBC he was "absolutely gutted" when he heard the 10th anniversary of the event might not take place this summer as other events were being axed."Not just for the punters who have grown to love it but also for the hardworking staff and for the volunteers and all the traders and contractors who rely on this," he was approached by the festival's investors, who are also behind Hardwick Festival in Sedgefield, County Durham, to take it over after Wannasee, which ran Lindisfarne last year, started having issues."We can't let something like this go to waste," Mr Maenpaa said. "It's important to everybody and to the region as well'. Bernard Rostron, who has sold ethically sourced goods at his Priya stall since its first year, said the festival's cancellation would have had a big said: "The knock-on is on the people who work with us because they lose a wage, but there's another impact on the suppliers."His store room near Penrith in Cumbria is filled with handmade items of clothing and bags from suppliers in places like Kathmandu and Rajasthan, who rely on his Rostron said four of the festivals he attended last year were not happening in 2025 and there was uncertainty about another four. He said: "Business isn't what it used to be."In Kathmandu, for instance, for one of our jacket suppliers, we are his only European customer now which is quite frightening for him, so that hurts us given that we care so deeply about our supply chain." Avid festival-goer Kevin Cooper reckons he went to 150 gigs and events last year and he would be sorry to not be able to attend home in Burnopfield, County Durham, is testament to his passion for music, the walls lined with CDs, vinyls and gig posters."Pre-Covid there was an explosion of festivals and I think post-Covid there's been a winding down of a number of them," he said he was "very disappointed" when festivals were cancelled. "Things like this damage consumer confidence but I do worry about what it does to the music industry which, while I'm not part of it, is very much a part of my life." Mr Maenpaa said people could have confidence in Lindisfarne going said: "We've got a backer who is very capable of looking after everything. "We've got everything in place - there maybe a few alterations that we don't know about because we are jumping in at the last minute, but we will put everything on and we will have most of the old team back so everything will be absolutely brilliant and we'll make it the best festival we possibly can."Wannasee has been contacted for comment. Follow BBC North East on X and Facebook and BBC Cumbria on X and Facebook and both on Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Earley MP Yuan Yang praises school's money-saving solar panels
A school will have more money to spend on education thanks to government-funded solar panels, an MP has government announced in March that it was investing £180m installing solar panels in schools and hospitals across the first 11 schools have now had them put in - including Whiteknights Primary School in Reading, which is expected to save around £4,500 a year as a result."Overall that means less money spent on energy and heating bills [and] more money to for the school to actually spend on students' education," said MP for Earley and Woodley Yuan Yang. The Labour MP visited the school on Monday, alongside climate minister Kerry McCarthy. She said she spoke to schoolchildren about climate change and how it should be tackled. "They wanted to talk about all sorts of things, from saving energy to transport," she said."It's often the children who asked the most incitive questions about climate change and the future."Climate minister Kerry McCarthy said the fact schools could save money on their bills was proof that the transition to green power could directly benefit communitiesGreat British Energy is a new publicly owned company set up by the Labour Yang said the solar panels, which would continue generating electricity throughout the weekends and school holidays to be sold back to the national grid, were "a really key investment"."All of this together is part of a diverse energy mix and the more different sources of renewable generation then the more robust - the more secure - an energy system is," she said. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
