Our Man in Westminster

Inevitably the arrival of a new local plan causes controversy. The advantage of having a plan approved and in place is that it stops the so-called “opportunistic” developments of 50 houses here and there on the edge of villages, which are outside the council’s control and cause much distress and anger.

The disadvantage is that the full numbers of proposed houses are set out in full covering a long period of time and this naturally maximises worries. We are all familiar with the problem of being torn both ways.

We want extra homes so that young people can start on the housing ladder but we don’t want them built near us.

One of the antidotes to controversy is to look at the actual numbers of houses built in Ashford each year.

I remember when John Prescott was demanding 1,000 houses every year must be built in Ashford.

Thankfully the figure does not remotely approach that. In 2016, 507 new homes were registered across the whole borough. In 2017 that

figure rose slightly to 525 but it 2018, for all the building works we see around us, the figure fell sharply to 378.

I should say that these figures are still above the national average, which is just under 250 per Parliamentary constituency most years.

But they show that the figures of thousands of new houses which we all tend to quote will only be built over a long period of time.

This time can, and must, be used to provide the school places, health facilities and roads that new families will need when added to the existing population. Indeed some of our current road problems are caused precisely by the building of this necessary infrastructure.

New homes always cause stresses and strains.

But we need to have our discussions on the basis of the actual numbers that are being built.