Tory shake-up moves party back towards its roots

David Cameron's reshuffle of his ministerial team looks set to move his party return to a more traditional Conservative Party stance on housing.

Former shadow housing minister Michael Gove- who had rattled the Tory ranks by suggesting more homes should be built on farmland- has been replaced by Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps.

Eric Pickles has been named as the shadow Communities Secretary, replacing Caroline Spellman. The duo appear to have very different views to Mr Gove, who recently admitted the presence of nimbyism with the Conservative Party and endorsed the need for a large increase in housing supply (see box).

His idea that homes could be built on farmland, revealed by Inside Housing, saw his party accused of flip flopping on housing policy in a parliament debate last year.

Mr Pickles said the Conservative Party's priority would be ‘housing numbers, housing numbers, housing numbers'. When asked if that meant he agreed more houses needed to be built, he said the problems with housing were ‘the clash between the centre and local communities, and the feeling we can build houses in a way that the Albanians used to turn out tractors.

‘If we are not careful, we will overwhelm communities. There's a lack of trust from the centre.'

Ensuring there was the necessary infrastructure to support housing would be a Tory priority, Mr Pickles said. He would not however give an indication when the party  would have a housing policy.

‘I have only been in the job less than 24 hours,' he said. Mr Shapps is supporting a local campaign on his website to stop 10,000 homes being built in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency.

A link on his website leads to a piece written by the ‘No Way to 10K' campaigners that says ‘We believe that you can not build your way out of a housing crisis.' Mr Shapps writes in a letter residents: ‘We all support the principle of providing affordable housing for our children and grandchildren, but we see this as an attempt by the government to concrete over large parts of the green belt in Welwyn Hatfield.'

Talking to Inside Housing, Mr Shapps said he saw a need for more homes to be built but that ‘local communities should decide where they go, rather than Whitehall or regional bureaucrats'.

‘I don't think it is sensible to be opposed to anything,' he said. ‘But what you can't do is build stuff which is done without any community notice.' He recognised that housing was moving much higher up the political agenda, saying it would be ‘one of the defining issues of the next 10 years'.

The Liberal Democrates have also had a reshuffle this week, keeping Andrew Stunell as the shadow secretary for communities and local government but giving Paul Holmes, MP for Chesterfield, the role of Lib Dem shadow housing minister.

Mr Holmes said: ‘Housing in the UK is facing a major crisis which the government has just turned a blind eye to. ‘We must build a million extra homes by 2020 and the Government must abandon its dogmatic attack on the council housing sector.'