Eastleigh feels the housing squeeze
The Eastleigh constituency, which sweeps around the north and east of Southampton in a rough semi-circle, is in many ways a microcosm of British society. It covers not just Eastleigh itself, a former railway town making the transition to a modern economy, but also the less industrial villages clustered around the town; there are areas of natural beauty in the countryside; and at its south end the electorate runs down to the waterfront by Hamble-le-Rice. As the Conservative candidate for its upcoming election contest, Conor Burns, puts it, “It’s a constituency that represents a little bit of everything in Britain.”
As you would expect in an area with a little bit of everything, there are problems – in this case, the gradual drift of heavy industry away from the constituency. The last major railway works in Eastleigh – an Alsthom plant – closes down at the end of the year with the loss of 550 jobs; other recent closures include a major bakery and a Pirelli factory. However, unemployment remains low – around one per cent across the constituency – as businesses increasingly switch to light industry.
So if there is one issue that really worries local residents, it is the pressure to build more and more houses in the area. Eastleigh is in the South East, the area earmarked by the Government for much of its house-building programme.
But the locals – and their candidates – fear this may damage the environment and their way of life. Housing developments are being planned, or have been planned, for allotments in Allington Lane, the local school, and the site of Eastleigh’s Mount Hospital. Residents are worried that the wrong sites are being chosen, and that unsustainable pressure is being put on the facilities the area already possesses.
Sam Snook, head of the local residents’ association, says the area has already been overdeveloped in a “disgusting” way.
“People can’t keep on building, building, building without putting in the infrastructure,” he adds.
Not surprisingly, the candidates differ on who is to blame. For the Liberal Democrats’ Chris Huhne, 50, a member of the Commission on Sustainable Development in the South East, the problem is a national one caused by the “pressure” that the Government’s housing strategy is putting on the South East.
“Most local people want less pressure,” says Huhne, MEP for the South East since 1999. “A substantial part of the solution is ensuring we have a sensible enough regional policy so that you don’t have this constant drift in the population towards the South-East.”
At a local level, he says there has been too much building on greenfield sites and greater use should be made of disused sites such as the old Pirelli factory.
However, Labour’s Chris Watt, 28, says that other regions in the South East are managing perfectly well with their housing allocation, and that the problem lies with the Liberal Democrat-run local council in Eastleigh.
“What the Liberals are claiming is that the Government are forcing this housing on to them. That’s not the case at all; in actual fact what the Government has said is that we do need extra housing in the South East across the region and there is an allocation of that for Hampshire,” says Watt, a parliamentary researcher.
“But unlike other areas in Hampshire – for example Southampton and Basingstoke – in Eastleigh the Liberal council have jumped on to that and pulled housing into the area – inappropriate housing – and they’ve been passing planning permission in all sorts of places.”
Developers must be asked to build more infrastructure into their plans, he adds.
The Conservatives’ Conor Burns, 32, says problems are occurring at both levels. “I think it’s a totally flawed basis on which the Government are starting. Not all the houses can be in the South East of England and there are a [lot of parts of the country] crying out for regeneration, for increased business to locate there.”
Pressure on the South East could be eased by lowering corporation tax for businesses in the North or local business rates reductions, adds Burns, who works in financial services.
At a local level, he claims applications for development are allowed “time and time again”.
“Now, this doesn’t happen in Test Valley, it doesn’t happen in Winchester, it doesn’t happen in Fareham, it doesn’t happen in our surrounding local authorities to the same extent as it does in Eastleigh.”
Concerns over housing intersect with worries over perhaps the other major issue in the area, the closure of the Mount Hospital, which will force Eastleigh residents to travel to Southampton or Winchester if they are ill.
Again, Huhne focuses on national priorities, saying local healthcare services are struggling because their costs are increasing even faster than Labour’s extra investment and because many of their costs are being determined by central government.
Labour and the Conservatives, however, blame the local council for approving a development brief that will see the site sold and used to build housing, although both admit the decision was ultimately made by the local primary care trust.
Burns says the hospital closed because the land was needed for development and because the trust had a deficit and wanted to use the proceeds from sale of land to plug that deficit. His solution is a ‘middle way’ that would see the trust sell half the land for development and use the remaining money to build a replacement facility on the other half of the land.
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The Conservatives used to hold Eastleigh, but the Liberal Democrats’ David Chidgey won the seat in a by-election in 1994. He held it again in 1997 and in 2001, where he took over 19,000 votes (some 40 per cent of the vote), ahead of Burns on 16,000 and Labour on 10,000. However, his decision not to stand again throws the seat open.
Although there was no obvious campaigning when politics.co.uk visited the area last week, there are signs the election is heating up. A report that Burns received a cheque from former Conservative treasurer Lord Ashcroft as part of a marginal seat ‘fighting fund’ raised eyebrows amongst his rivals, and there have been claims and counter-claims about whether candidates are truly ‘local’.
Huhne, who has had a house in Eastleigh for two years as well as a house in London, says he has already done “quite a lot of casework” in the area, working with Chidgey on issues such as the Pirelli factory closure.
Asked about taking over from the sitting MP, he says: “I think it is a great advantage because David obviously has a tremendous reputation in the constituency.”
He claims to be unworried by the prospect of allegations that he is an outsider.
“People will compare [that with] what’s actually been the track record. I suspect it’s not an easy one to win. I don’t think it will be a decisive factor.”
Burns says that for him – the constituency’s Conservative candidate for six years – the ‘local’ question is an important one.
“I think it’s right that, in an age of increasing disillusionment with politicians and politics, that someone who has lived in the area for years, who has spent the whole of his life in Southern Hampshire, should point out that I am local,” he says.
Asked if the election campaign is turning nasty, he replies: “Almost every campaign – be a it a Conservative and Liberal Democrat battle or a Labour and Liberal Democrat battle – almost every battle that involves the Liberal Democrats does turn nasty.”
However, such arguments are “a sideshow”, he adds.
For his part, Watt says Eastleigh “looked a nice seat to have a go for”.
