UK Councils subject to delayed/postponed elections are making undemocratic multi-billion-pound decisions to build homes for immigrants?
Where is the democratic process for making half a trillion pound decisions !!!
I am monitoring the roll-out of th UK labour government’s plans to build a million new homes 300,000 a year from 2024 (with a year gone already!) to address the UK’s need to house 3 million people – (2 million of which are legal and illegal immigrants)
The government maintains that it plans to redraw electoral boundaries makes holding local elections impractical and an unnecessary cost - as elections would need to be repeated In short order.
Sceptics – like me – would argue this is part of a failed initial (in July 2024) plot to install Labour mayors in newly established , newly formed, unitary councils, after what appeared to be a strong tail wind from a landslide national election victory – the rise of UK Reform, the liberal Democrats and the Greens has blown that “single party state” completely out of he water, thank God. Labour would lose all but a handful of its current 399 seats in Parliament – it is “toast” – so are the Tories. things might change fast in the next two years - and UK Reform certainly needs to organise its 250,000 members into a cohesive policy “politburo” or it will suffer the same fate as Labour.
Back to the plan to build a million homes:
I posted this yesterday:
And these articles a while ago:
Labour announces plans for its first “new town” – £8 billion for 20,000 illegal immigrants
Now we have this:
Huge new UK commuter ‘village’ to be built with almost 3,000 homes
“From Brave AI:
“Chelmsford City Council has not allocated a specific budget amount for the construction of 3,000 new homes at Hammonds Farm. The development is part of the Chelmsford Garden Community, with the council identifying land for up to 3,000 homes by 2041, and a further 1,500 homes planned beyond that date.”
“The cost to build a new home in the UK typically ranges from £1,750 to £3,000 per square metre. “To estimate the cost of 3,000 homes, one would need to know the average size per home. For example, a typical 3-bedroom house might be around 100–130 square metres. Using a mid-range construction cost of £2,500 per square metre, a 120 m² home would cost approximately £300,000 in construction alone. For 3,000 homes, this would total around £900 million in construction costs, not including land, professional fees, or infrastructure. The full project cost would be significantly higher when including land acquisition, planning, and infrastructure development.”
Th point is not that the new homes are not needed – for Brits, not immigrants, it is who authorises the costly plans to build them. The local councillors have limited legitimacy to authorise large scale projects now that local elections have been given the opportunity to defer local elections (and keep their salaries/benefits/allowance packages).
The cost for these homes is increasingly cantering on an average cost per house/apartment of around half a million pounds – total cost HALF A TRILION POUNDS – MINIMUM.
Onwards!!!
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The accountability gap here is pretty striking. Half a trillion in commitments without fresh electoral mandates seems like a real oversight in democratic process, regardless of where one stands on the housing needs themselves. I've seen similar tensions play out locally where infrastructure decisions get rushed through before elections can reset council dynamics. The timing around boundary changes creating this window really does raise questions about deliberate strategy versus administrative coincidence. When councils can lock in multi-decade financial commitmetns while insulated from voter feedback, that's a structural problem beyond any single party's agenda.
Unbelievable. The grift must be massive, how many are taking how much of these tax monies as the development proposals are passed along? The amounts do NOT make sense. It is a transfer of wealth and it is no coincidence that the boundaries being redrawn right at this massive spending time result in elections being postponed. That is insane.