Peter
Viggers, MP for the Gosport constituency, is supporting pressure
to return housing and planning powers to local councils,
and has criticised the decision by the South East England
Regional Assembly (SEERA) to spend £175,000 on a questionnaire
to gauge residents’ views on more house building.
The Deputy Prime
Minister’s plan to build 720,000
new homes in the south east over the next 20 years was last
week rejected by SEERA, but in a sign of increasing concern
at the effects of high levels of house building, the regional
assembly decided against making a firm recommendation on
the number to be built and instead opted to send a questionnaire
to residents to ask for their feedback.
Peter said, “SEERA had already planned for 25,500
new homes in the South East region, but had proposed to raise
the target to 28,000 or 32,000. Now they are to send questionnaires
to residents, wasting a further £175,000 of taxpayers’ money,
to ask their opinions on house building levels.
“Decisions
on the number of new houses are that are required and that
can be absorbed should be made by elected
council members locally, and not by unelected regional bodies.
Local Councillors and Officers are far more knowledgeable
about their own areas and are democratically accountable
to residents for their decisions. In Hampshire, representatives
of all local authorities have met and agreed a level of house
building which they believe is manageable, with the maximum
end of the range being 79,000-82,000 houses in the 20 years
from 2006 to 2026. SEERA have indicated that their top-end
figure would be in the region of 84,000 new homes for the
south east region.
“I firmly believe that such decisions should be left
to elected local representatives and will be backing moves
to have this responsibility returned to local Councils”. |
