Red faces for Lib Dems in indentity crisis
LIBERAL Democrat mayoral candidate said she was “shocked” by a blunder on a campaign leaflet which said she was running for election for Labour.
In the leaflet which went to constituency households, voters were told of “3 reasons to back Beverley Nielsen for West Midlands Labour mayor.”
A campaign spokesman said the leaflet had been created by the local party in Hall Green.
Ms Nielsen said: “There are a great many volunteers working hard with local Lib Dem campaigns at the moment, especially with the mayoral election coming up.
“The leaflet was produced locally by the Hall Green group, not by my office, and I’m very grateful for their support. I’m sure they were as shocked as I was when the mistake was pointed out.”
Meanwhile, Ms Neilson has slammed the idea that prefab homes could be the answer to Birmingham’s chronic housing shortage.
Prefabs have largely disappeared from the streets of Britain but may be set for a revival with councils, including Chelmsford in Essex and Ealing in London, looking to import them. In Birmingham just a handful of the lightweight bungalows remain, including in Wake Green Road, Moseley, where they are preserved and protected under a grade II historic listing.
The Government is now offering incentives to councils and developers to build 100,000 prefabs by the end of the decade.
But if elected Ms Nielsen said she would oppose their re-introduction in the region.
“I am calling upon the Government to abandon plans to rescue the UK housing shortage with prefabricated, imported buildings, because it will ruin an industry, de-skill a generation before they get their careers started and will fail to provide homes that people want to live in,” she said.
“The West Midlands currently enjoys a return of £2.84 for every £1 invested in UK housing and that is because we make many construction materials in this region.
“That will change if the Government insists we import prefabricated housing systems from places like Russia and China.”
Other candidates for mayor are James Burn (Green), Pete Durnell (UKIP), Siôn Simon(Lab), Graham Stevenson (Communist) and Andy Street (Con).