Author Archives: Keith House

Opinion: View from the doorsteps of Eastleigh

Eastleigh railwayman statue - Some rights reserved by Mr. Ducke

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 …

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Opinion: Tackling Britain’s housing crisis

Terraced housingLiberal 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 and | 13 Comments

Keith House writes: Low carbon development, the Eastleigh way

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 …

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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...