Nick Ridley, Daniel Scharf and Warren Brown respond to the news that the party will allow councils to buy land cheaply if elected next year
After 64 years’ worth of elections, it would be a pity to change my voting habits. But if the Labour party under Keir Starmer campaigns with a manifesto including a housing policy as outlined, I will (Labour plans to allow local authorities to buy land cheaply for development, 29 May). To give local councils (or anybody else) “sweeping new powers” to use compulsory purchase orders to buy land cheaply could well create more division and negative community spirit.
It would also result in the loss of even more agricultural land to tarmac and concrete. The present speed of conversion of good, food-growing land to concrete is unsustainable; a government’s first priority should be to make our country as near self-sufficient in food as possible.
Nick Ridley
Banbury, Oxfordshire
