If we are going to rely on local plans, then they must be shaped by the whole local population, not just the colonels, councillors and lifelong objectors who have turned consultation into a blood sport.
Here is the counter argument to Hague: housing is not stuck because we’ve run out of theory – it is stuck because we let people with no sectoral experience design rules for those who do.
Without new homes, young people delay marriage and children, birth rates fall, and the social contract begins to break. Failing to build is not just bad economics: it is moral negligence.
NCR offers operational conservatism and its principles are practical. Produce more at home in energy, industry, and housing. Spread capital and security. Run on metrics, publish dashboards, set quarterly targets, time-limit decisions, escalate blockages, and much more
Britain once led the world in industry, science, and sport – not by accident, but through ambition, struggle, and a culture of excellence. That culture is now dead. We have built a society that fears competition and therefore avoids it at any cost.
We need a new planning deal for rural Britain. One that supports gentle density, enables business-led development, and recognises that real countryside isn’t a disused car park in Zone 6, immortalised by the CPRE as if it were the Garden of the Hesperides.