Burnham’s idea of devolution contradicts the centralising measures the Labour government have been taking to drive through more housing, more accommodation for illegal arrivals, more wind arrays and solar farms, more grid pylons, less food growing. I bet he does not reverse those measures, as Labour struggles to impose more housing and net zero developments on a population that wants better control of our borders and fewer unreliable energy installations gobbling up farmland. Indeed, with his passion to build 1.5m homes with more emphasis on Council housing he may well need to intensify the override of our local Councils in his futile attempt to reach this unrealistic target.
Many of us would like our local Councils to have the power to say No to the conversion of military facilities into large open settlements for illegal arrivals. We would like national government to obey our wishes to reduce substantially inward migration to cut the need for so many new housing estates. We would like our Councils to be free to decide how much housing development and where.
It is true there would still be risk of disappointment with some Green and Lib Dem Councils, but if they defied local wishes on planning matters more people would see the need to vote to put in a Council that did reflect local views.
We would like local and national government to get out of the way in many decisions people and companies could take for themselves. Planning often gets in the way of people and businesses improving their existing properties, whilst imposing large new developments and changes of use of public sector property that communities think go too far.