Author Archives: Peter Thornton

Peter Thornton

Reflections on the Housing Working Group

By Peter Thornton | Sun 24th September 2023 - 8:30 am

We’re in the final hours before conference debates our Housing paper and it’s been good to read the discussion taking place on Lib Dem Voice and elsewhere. I am looking forward to a similar debate in the conference hall on Monday. Liberal Democrat’s really care about housing and we all agree that we need to build more homes, our discussions are about how we best achieve this.

When we started our working group we wanted to achieve two things. To offer a credible housing policy for the Liberal Democrats to show we actually want to build homes, and to help those who don’t have a home to get one and be protected while they’re renting. And I believe we’ve achieved that.

I have led a council that is facing a housing crisis, I’ve seen people trapped in temporary accommodation unable to join the community, I’ve seen people have no choice but to leave their area. People can’t afford to live here in the Lake District and this is hurting our communities and our economy. Too many of the homes that are being built or that come up for sale are being sold into the second homes or holiday lets market and there simply aren’t enough smaller homes for people looking to buy their first home. Without new blood the Lake District will simply become a playground for the super wealthy and its communities and heritage will die.

In South Lakeland, we have built new social housing to help people get on the housing ladder. As leader I introduced a target of 1,000 affordable homes to rent and this has led to more homes being provided.

Across England we build around 8,000 new council homes a year and this number is outstripped by the losses. This is a result of Conservative governments deliberately and cynically seeking to reduce the social housing sector.

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Peter Thornton

Help tackle the housing crisis

By Peter Thornton | Fri 18th February 2022 - 9:28 am

Embed from Getty Images

England’s housing market is fundamentally unfair; it has left millions of people in insecure, unaffordable and low quality housing, whilst many others have seen their wealth increase dramatically. For many people, especially the young, the prospect of a secure home is a pipedream. The Federal Policy Committee’s working group on Homes and Planning wants your help to fix the English housing market and deliver the homes the country needs.

Although housing and planning is a devolved matter, we would welcome contributions from members outside of England about how their approach works and if there are any lessons we can learn from them.

There have been a wide range of estimates of how many homes England needs to build, ranging from 380,000 to around 200,000 a year. We believe that with a shortage of labour, skills, materials, available sites for development means that we should prioritise building social homes first and foremost – since the sector is currently struggling to build its current number of homes. These meet those in the greatest need, and can help bring down rents more generally.

We also want to ensure that homes are built to the highest standards. At the last election, we had robust and ambitious proposals for making homes fit for a carbon-neutral future, but we’d welcome any ideas you have to improve on those proposals.

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Peter Thornton

Let’s be the party speaking for Rural Britain!

By Peter Thornton | Thu 30th June 2016 - 6:22 pm

I can remember a time when the Liberals were the party representing the progressive voice of Rural Britain. Our voting base was here and Liberal MPs seemed to spend most of their time in the wild places of our islands.

As the Liberal Democrat’s we’ve widened our appeal, but in doing this we seem to have lost our rural voice to some extent.

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Peter Thornton

We need a strong Rural Voice!

By Peter Thornton | Mon 14th September 2015 - 11:08 am

 

I’ve just returned from the Rural Conference, organised by the Rural Services Network.

It was good couple of days, talking about broadband, housing,  council funding and elderly care. Our subjects in other words, and not areas where this Tory government is showing much competence. Here’s the programme.

There were three Lib Dem delegates at the conference.

That’s right, only three of us among a sea of Tories.

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Peter Thornton

Opinion: The Tim I know and why I am backing him

By Peter Thornton | Fri 19th June 2015 - 6:30 pm

It seems a long time since I sat in a Kendal pub and talked with a young 32 year old parliamentary candidate who had dreams of being our local MP. The Tories had been in power here for just short of 100 years and we thought that was enough. The District Council had a Tory leader and I was there to see if I could be persuaded to stand as a Liberal Democrat for my local Ward, to bring us a little nearer towards taking control.

It’s 13 years since that meeting, Tim’s now our MP and we run the Council. We’re building homes for local families, who previously were being forced out of South Lakeland, and we’re helping create jobs by having a strong local plan. Our targets are 1,000 new affordable homes to rent and 1,000 new jobs. We came into politics to change lives for the better and we’re doing that in South Lakeland.

We used to run many more councils across the UK, all with a good story to tell, and if we are to rebuild our party we need to take these councils back! That’s why I’m writing to ask you to join me in backing Tim Farron as our new party leader.

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