Euro plans threaten Haringey with over development

Local communities could lose yet more say over planning policy according to Haringey Conservatives.

Lydia Rivlin, Chairman of Tottenham Conservatives and a GLA candidate for London , warned this week of new Government proposals to strip Haringey council and local people of their say on planning and new housing developments.  The moves come as part of the Governments euro preparations, to make the housing market more in line with Europe. This would include increasing the rate of stamp duty and a massive building programme to dampen housing demand.

Rivlin warned,
The Government is already ignoring the views of local people by imposing a massive building programme through regional house-building targets. The forthcoming Planning Bill will further weaken local communities say on local developments. Liberal Democrats also support such moves, wanting planning strategies to be decided at a regional level.

Now Labour, supported by the Liberal Democrats, are forcing through arbitrary changes to housing policy to try to push Britain into scrapping the Pound. They know that joining the euro would be bad for jobs, bad for business and bad for the British people. Nonetheless, they are determined to start tackling what they see as the obstacles to entry.

Higher stamp duty will kick young families off the first rung of the housing ladder. And weakening local councils say on planning will mean the bulldozing of green fields across the country. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are putting politics before both economics and the environment.

Notes to Editors
On 9 June 2003, the Government published 18 reports analysing whether Britain should join the euro. One of the reports, UK Membership of the Single Currency: An Assessment of the Five Economic Tests, explained, the Government is undertaking further significant changes in the planning system, supply of housing and housing finance&[which will] increase the housing markets compatibility with the euro area (p.26).
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/the_euro/assessment/studies/euro_assess03_studindex.cfm
The document goes on to talk of tough and credible measures, including intervention, where local authorities are not delivering housing numbers in high demand areas; and exploring whether, in the medium term, achieving the Governments objective will require a system of binding local plans (UK Membership of the Single Currency: An Assessment of the Five Economic Tests, p.27).
 /continued&
The Daily Telegraph has reported, the Council for the Protection of Rural England said that the increase in housebuilding would eat further into diminishing greenfield sites in already highly populated areas (Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2003).        
Fiscal Stabilisation and EMU, another of the 18 studies published by the Treasury, discusses how the Government could attempt to use taxes to stabilise the economy once interest rates could no longer be set on the basis of Britains economic needs.  It says: One option would be to extend the regulator power to additional taxes, such as stamp duty&More broadly, tax instruments affecting the housing market have some immediate appeal for a number of reasons&For example, stamp duty could be raised during a period of rapid house price increases (p.86).    
Liberal Democrats proposals for regional government (Don Foster, Empowering the People: Plans for Strong Regional Government, February 2002), involve spatial planning (including housing numbers) being decided at a distant regional level, not a local level (p.4). This would mean that politicians and bureaucrats in a distant regional body could impose sprawling housing estates, rail freight lines, by-passes, motorways, new airport runways, irrespective of the views of local communities and local representatives.  Don Foster, their housing spokesman, has added, regional conferences, and ultimately regional government, must have the last word on housebuilding and development (Don Foster, Liberal Democrat press release, 6 February 2001).

ENDS