Conservative members have urged the party to commit to building more housing and not give into ‘nimbyism’ if it returns to government.
In a debate during the party’s conference in Birmingham on Monday, several members urged shadow housing minister David Simmonds to support measures to build more homes.
One member said the Tories had shown “weakness” in abandoning local housing targets in 2022. Meanwhile, a local association chairwoman said the public must be open to having more houses in rural areas.
Daphne Bagshawe, the head of the Sussex Weald Conservative Association in south-east England, said people locally had been firmly opposed to new developments being built.
Ms Bagshawe, whose daughter Louise Mensch served as an MP for the Conservative Party between 2010 and 2012, said: “In my part of the world, and I’m not just talking about Conservatives … people are very good at saying one thing, and that one thing is no.
“They say no to more or less everything, to more or less every proposal that comes up for building. They make our councillors’ lives a misery, they’ve made our MP’s life very difficult.
“We do have to be prepared to share … not just the brownfields but some of the beauty that people wish to experience for themselves.
“The beauty that we have, and when we talk about protecting the green belt for future generations, we often mean for future generations of our own family, but we actually have to be prepared to see young people move into the areas where we live.”
Another member, Chris Bowman from Tunbridge Wells, said he thought the previous Conservative government had shown a lack of strength when it abandoned Michael Gove’s housing targets.
Mr Bowman said: “We had (Gove) who put in local housing targets. We Conservatives wimped out and took away those targets. This was a sign of weak government listening to local MPs rather than doing what the nation wanted. I do hope this is going to change.”
Andrew Preston said he believed the increase in house prices should not be celebrated, but instead viewed in the same way that higher prices for food and energy are. House prices rose by 2.7% in the year up to June 2024.
“When the price goes up, it’s treated as inflation, it’s treated as a bad thing. Homes aren’t an asset, they are a necessity to live a comfortable life, they need to be accessible,” Mr Preston said.
Others reinforced the need for the greenbelt to be protected. Solihull councillor Sardul Marwa said: “Once these areas go, they are gone forever.
“Green spaces aren’t just nice to have, they are essential to combating climate change, preserving biodiversity and improving the mental and physical health of communities.”
In response, Mr Simmonds said instead of focusing on greenbelt development, Labour should ensure the 1.4 million homes that have been given planning permission are built.
He added: “We need a planning policy that brings forward a greater degree of intergenerational fairness, and recognises whether we like it or not, that the change in demographics with a much higher proportion of renters in our country, means that the needs and expectations of the population in housing terms will be different from what they have been in the past.
“The big question for me, that I will put to Angela Rayner … is why should it be a priority to remove greenbelt protections rather than ensure those 1.4 million homes are built?”
