Tag Archives: green belt

We need to be ambitious on planning and housing – while telling uncomfortable truths

By Andrew Chandler | Tue 16th July 2024 - 10:50 am

Now that the election is over, and we have successfully made inroads into the Conservative Blue Wall, it’s time to reflect and learn from our past. Moving forward, it’s crucial that we balance our national progressive platform with the needs of our Blue Wall constituents. We must navigate this balance with confidence, avoiding the pitfalls of timidity that have hindered us in the past. In a landscape marked by fragmented politics and widespread distrust, we can’t afford to be complacent.

Our victories in this election were not isolated as an endorsement alone but were also influenced by a split on the right. It poses a threat for us. People have an appetite to “shake-up” the system feeling that, for years, Governments have neglected issues like housing, development and infrastructure. We need to be mindful of the rising threat of far-right politics, which often scapegoats marginal groups instead of addressing the real issues. The performances of parties like Reform and the lukewarm vote share for Labour highlight the concerns of many communities. These communities feel “threatened,” suffer from managed decline, and lack regeneration. It’s our duty to ensure that the gains we’ve made in the Blue Wall, while substantiated, also remains meaningful and sometimes brave.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged housing policy | 30 Comments

The Next Lib Dem USP – Build More Houses

By Alan Muhammed | Tue 25th February 2020 - 12:30 pm

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In my last post on Lib Dem Voice I touched on the current soul-searching going on within our Party, focusing on future electoral strategy. However, a successful electoral strategy has no purpose if we have no vision of what we would do with any further power it may bring. Now that the fight to keep the UK in the EU has been lost, the Liberal Democrats are in need of a new mission.

I can think of none better than solving the country’s housing crisis. The current lack of housing in the UK contributes to a number of the country’s wider problems, and so to tackle the housing crisis would go some distance towards making our country greener, healthier, more productive, and more equal.