{"id":136299,"date":"2024-09-17T10:19:06","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T10:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/lib-dems-housing-pits-nimbys-against-yimbys\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T10:19:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T10:19:07","slug":"lib-dems-housing-pits-nimbys-against-yimbys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/lib-dems-housing-pits-nimbys-against-yimbys\/","title":{"rendered":"Lib Dems: Housing pits Nimbys against Yimbys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has denied his party is leading opposition to new homes<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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In the debate about building homes and where to put them, you may have heard the term Nimby (not in my back yard).<\/p>\n

You may also be familiar with Yimby, a word to describe supporters of new housing, meaning “yes in my back yard”.<\/p>\n

A new one is Yify, which Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor tested out at his party\u2019s autumn conference this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Liberal Democrats, we need to be better at saying yes, if,\u201d the MP for Sutton and Cheam said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can say yes to more housing, if we get better local public services. Yes to more homes, if we get better transport links.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These are some of the awkward phrases and rhetorical somersaults on display at Lib Dem events in Brighton.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the Lib Dems appear to be a united political tribe, their spirits buoyed by their newly minted status as the third-biggest party in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

But in the nooks and crannies of this conference, there have been divisions – as there are in any party – and what to do about housing is one of the biggest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we do about house-building is going to take us decades to address the demand for residents,\u201d Taylor said at a fringe event.<\/p>\n

The Lib Dem answer to this demand, in its general election manifesto<\/a>, was a target of \u201cincreasing building of new homes to 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was a target the party was going to scrap, with the party\u2019s former leader Tim Farron condemning it as “pure Thatcherism”. But at last year\u2019s autumn conference, Lib Dem members defied the party\u2019s leadership<\/a> by voting to keep it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Reputation building<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The Lib Dems have been accused of Nimbyism for opposing house-building locally. Although party leader Sir Ed Davey\u2019s denied his party was a blocker<\/a> of new homes, the party hasn\u2019t been able to shake the reputation.<\/p>\n

A few examples suggest why. Charlie Maynard, the new MP for Witney, posted in July<\/a> to say there\u2019s \u201cfar too much reliance on housebuilding to grow our economy\u201d. And in 2020, the party\u2019s foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, opposed plans<\/a> to build almost 11,000 homes in Oxford by 2036.<\/p>\n

At one conference event, there was no hiding the tension between the party\u2019s housing targets and local Lib Dem opposition to some developments.<\/p>\n

Jamie Rumbelow, whose company Tract build tools to navigate the planning system, said the Lib Dems had shown a \u201clack of interest\u201d in the specifics of how to build new homes.<\/p>\n

He said the Lib Dems needed to \u201caddress this leftist form of Nimbyism\u201d to support housebuilding”.<\/p>\n

Pippa Heylings, the new Lib Dem MP for South Cambridgeshire, agreed that not enough was being doing to build new homes.<\/p>\n

But she said the argument needed to move away from Nimbys vs Yimbys, and branded deregulation a \u201cfalse economy\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Joshan Parmar, a Young Liberal activist, said \u201cYimbyism can win\u201d<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The youth wing of the Lib Dems was instrumental in forcing the party to keep its 380,000-a-year housebuilding target.<\/p>\n

Joshan Parmar, a Young Liberal and director of Lib Dems for Housing, said \u201cYimbyism can win\u201d and urged his party to unite around that shared idea.<\/p>\n

There are signs of sympathy for that strain of thought among the party\u2019s new intake of MPs.<\/p>\n

The new MP for Eastbourne, Josh Babarinde, said he had been described him as a Yimby. He said he had supported the building of a house in his own back garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way out of the housing emergency is to build,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Houses in the wrong places<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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How the party manages the Nimby and Yimby voices within its ranks of 72 MPs will be one of the subplots of this Parliament.<\/p>\n

Could Yify (yes, if) emerge as the fudge to hold both sides together?<\/p>\n

Helen Moran\u2019s take on this gives some clues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support the right development in the right places and have successfully delivered housing across the country – in Kingston, the Cotswolds and Westmorland for example,\u201d the MP for North Shropeshire and the party\u2019s housing spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where developers are building houses that are in the wrong places, such as flood planes, or without the infrastructure we need, then we rightly oppose them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support high quality development, but our councillors are right to oppose poor quality plans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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BBC Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has denied his party is leading opposition to new homes In the debate about building homes and where to put them, you may have heard the term Nimby (not in my back yard). You may also be familiar with Yimby, a word to describe supporters of new housing, meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[8379,7560,8378,83693,14610,109179],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136301,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136299\/revisions\/136301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}