Buying a home in South Ribble ‘an impossible dream’ for the young

That was the message to the politicians battling to be the area’s next MP during a hustings debate ahead of the general election.

In a public question put to the prospective parliamentarians who appeared at the event, the prospect of home ownership was described as “an unattainable dream” for the young, which had slipped even further out of reach as a result of recent interest rate rises and the cost-of-living crisis.

>>>Click here to watch the full South Ribble election debate.

However, Conservative candidate Katherine Fletcher, said it was not impossible for the young to purchase a property in some parts of the constituency – and claimed her party’s stamp duty plans would help.

“You can buy a three bedroom terrace home within 15 minutes walk of Leyland train station, which is on the direct line to Manchester, for approximately £125,000 – and two people earning below the average wage could…with support from government, like abolishing stamp duty for first time buyers [on properties up to £425K], find that accessible home, with some saving.

“Now, does that mean that that’s true all over the constituency? No, absolutely not. But I think it’s important to remember that we aren’t London and the south east,” said Ms. Fletcher, who was South Ribble’s MP from 2019 until Parliament was dissolved last month.

However, her Labour opponent Paul Foster said “wholesale planning reform” was needed – as well as a return to council housing.

“We must allow local authorities, like we have started doing here in South Ribble, to build their own social homes at affordable rents.   That is the only way we’re going to get enough homes in South Ribble for our children and our friends and our families to live in.

“The undersupply is chronic. We have almost 4,000…families awaiting…social housing in South Ribble.  They’re living in temporary accommodation, some of them – others [are in] private rented, which is neither fit-for-purpose and is probably about twice the going rate,” said Mr. Foster, who is also the leader of South Ribble Borough Council.

Liberal Democrat candidate Ange Turner said the planning system was “broken”.

“Planning legislation in this country is failing people by not [being] more specific about the sort of housing that should be built. We’ve got developers who have the opportunity to amend [their] planning application to turn what is essentially planning [permission] that would build affordable homes for both the old people in our communities and the young people …and then they put an amendment in and they suddenly build 200 huge, five-bedroom houses.

“This has got to change. If you can’t provide the kids in your community a start in life, to build a family with an affordable home, then this affects the whole of our economy,” said Ms. Turner, who is also a South Ribble borough councillor.

Meanwhile, Reform UK representative Andy Hunter credited the district authority in South Ribble with doing “a pretty good job” of discharging its planning duties.

He added:  “This is not an inexpensive area and therefore the cost of houses is going to be quite often above the ranges of many people, not just young people.

“We have got a lot of brownfield sites that could possibly be potential development areas and if we put the right thoughts into how we can do that – and we get the right people to invest – we can probably start building sensible patterns of housing across the relevant areas,” Mr. Hunter said.

Green Party candidate Stephani Mok was unable to attend the hustings event, which was held at Penwortham Golf Club and staged by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Lancashire Post, Lancashire Lead and Blog Preston.