Louie French MP's latest column in the News Shopper.
Bexley is one of London’s greenest boroughs. We enjoy more than 100 parks and open spaces. It’s one of the things that makes our borough great. Yet we can take these places for granted, from small pockets of bliss such as Longlands Recreational Ground to large open spaces such as Danson Park.
Without greenery, Bexley wouldn’t be the same. We’d lose something special, whether it’s playing fields and playgrounds, space to think, walk and exercise, or Bexley’s suburban character that defines our home. We’d also lose the precious few habitats and spaces left in Bexley for local wildlife and nature to thrive. These places are worthy of protection.
And protection is what they need. None of our parks are here by accident. Many have been protected in local planning documents by successive Conservative councils. Some have official planning protections. Danson Park, Lamorbey, and East Wickham Open Space are Metropolitan Open Land. Others, such as Foots Cray Meadows, Sidcup Place, or the green fields surrounding Bexley Village and North Cray, are protected green belt land.
But these protections are now under threat.
The Government and the Mayor of London are preparing a fresh assault on Bexley’s green spaces. They are planning to remove protections from swathes of green belt land locally, empower Sadiq Khan to overturn councils that block development on green fields, and impose unachievable housing targets on boroughs like Bexley to force development onto green land.
Even Reform UK’s leader in City Hall has voted for Sadiq Khan’s plans to build on London’s Green Belt. Their mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, has branded much of the green belt as “industrial wasteland”. I disagree wholeheartedly.
Their defenders will say that it is necessary to solve the housing shortage. But the truth is that Sadiq Khan has been responsible for housebuilding in London for a decade, and his policies have failed to build the homes our city needs. Construction only started on 5,547 homes in London last year — that’s just 6% of the capital’s annual target.
Mayor Khan has made it too complicated and too expensive to build in London. He’s imposed 123 planning policies, so it takes seven weeks longer on average to seek permission for a major development here than in other cities. An independent review found that his policies “frustrated” rather than “facilitated” the development of brownfield land.
His policies are so poor that, incredibly, four-fifths of the homes built in London in 2024 received planning permission under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty. The same is true of most homes started that same year; they were approved under Boris, not Khan.
Labour has made a mess of housing in London, and now they’re looking for an easy answer. But building on green fields against local wishes, while Mayor Khan’s planning policies have made it impossible to build on vacant land next to Tube stations in London, is wrong.
Instead, it’s beyond time to unpick Sadiq Khan’s failed planning policies and get London building on brownfield land once again.
