Our latest polling suggests the government will have more of an uphill battle than expected to deliver its new towns agenda: 1. While most people think new towns would reduce pressure on existing towns and cities, only a 1/3 of people would want to live in or visit them. (1/3)
Early go at Labour Growth/Housing/Infrastructure people on BlueSky, which I'll be updating periodically. Give me a nod of you think I'm missing anyone. go.bsky.app/ENRUppA
Great history. Think design of new towns/garden cities was also important for their ultimate success - in terms of architectural styles (modernist, concrete aesthetic didn’t prove widely popular in England), form/density and how car-centric new developments were (good rail links were key)
8. Overall new targets not THAT politically motivated, esp when mapped against recent delivery. Big challenge for govt is that Lab MPs who just won seats in SE will now be asked to build lots more homes than Tory predecessors (which their voters will be very sensitive to) (8/8)
7. Telegraph flagged 9 of Lab Cabinet represent seats which had targets cut. This is true. But 6 had increases above 80%, including Ed Miliband (164%), John Healey (145%) and Bridget Phillipson (136%) and overall, Cab must increase housebuilding by 70% to meet their targets (7/8)
6. Those with least stretching targets are spread more evenly across the country and again mainly Labour (partly a result of having a landslide victory…) (6/8)
5. Ranking seats against recent housing delivery changes the picture entirely. Seats with most stretching targets are majority Lab and largely in LDN & SE, incl the PM’s seat (though in practice housing need will be allocated strategically across boroughs in next LDN Plan) (5/8)
4. Bottom 20 MPs who see their targets fall also almost all Lab (exception Chris Philp). These are heavily focused in LDN & Coventry where the current method requires triple the no. of homes being built and is clearly undeliverable (even recognising LDN needs to build more) (4/8)
3. Of 20 MPs facing the biggest increase in targets - 3/4 are Lab, almost all in North. Many are already building way over their targets, like Redcar (current method says just 45 homes needed a yr but >400 are being built) but others eg Blackpool will be more challenging (3/8)
1. Labour MPs face an 8% increase in their housing targets vs 34% for Tories. 2. BUT this partly corrects for last govt’s political 35% uplift on Lab voting cities in 2022. Comparing new targets to no. of homes being built, Lab’s are *more* stretching – up 57% vs 55% (2/8)