Author Archives: Keith House

Opinion: View from the doorsteps of Eastleigh

By Keith House | Sun 1st June 2014 - 10:30 am

It was a warm, sunny spring with just odd showers in May in Eastleigh. We had unbelievably good local election results. Twelve months on from the County elections, that in turn had followed on from the Eastleigh by-election, when UKIP gained 50% of the County seats in the Parliamentary seat, we expected to lose seats. The odds were that at least five and potentially seven seats could go out of the thirteen we were defending. In the end, we won all thirteen.

This …

Opinion: Tackling Britain’s housing crisis

By Keith House | Wed 5th February 2014 - 5:00 pm

Liberal Democrats have long recognised the housing crisis that has grown steadily worse since the 1979 Conservative Government stopped councils building new homes. In Government, Liberal Democrats have made a good start at increasing the number of affordable homes built for rent, with 335,000 homes to be completed between 2011 and 2018, and supported initiatives to help deliver market housing.

We’ve also agreed an ambitious target of 300,000 new homes each year for overall housing supply as party policy. But even with some councils starting to build again, there is a long way to go before anywhere near enough homes are built each year in Britain to meet need.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged housing and natalie elphicke | 13 Comments

Keith House writes: Low carbon development, the Eastleigh way

By Keith House | Thu 5th September 2013 - 3:30 pm

This is the second of three extracts from the forthcoming collection of essays Green liberalism: a local approach to the low carbon economy. Similar collections will be published under Green Alliance’s ‘Green social democracy’ and ‘Green conservatism’ projects as part of the Green Roots programme, which aims to stimulate green thinking within the three dominant political traditions in the UK.

An international airport where two major motorways bisect may not, at a first glance, be the obvious place to start when looking for a council committed to the green economy. Add in support from the council for the managed growth of …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged green alliance, green liberalism and low carbon | 4 Comments