Rebecca Harris, the Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate for Castle Point at the General Election on 4th July, is warning against giving Labour the opportunity to concrete over precious local Green Belt. Castle Point has 3,770 hectares of Green Belt land that would be at huge risk from Labour’s plans.

Rebecca is passionate about saving the Green Belt in Castle Point and preserving the special character of the Borough. She has spoken at many planning appeals and helped hundreds of residents submit their own objections to remove the threat of housing development or land banking from the Green Belt sites around Castle Point. If re-elected on 4th July, Rebecca will continue to work with residents to stop these speculative applications from developers.

However, in a briefing to The Sunday Times, Labour have announced that from ‘day one’ they would begin an all-out assault on the Green Belt. Keir Starmer is committed to ‘bulldoze’ national planning law and is expected to reclassify land protected as ‘green belt land’ – opening the door to concreting over the Green Belt without giving residents in Castle Point a say. These comments come just weeks after a Labour official claimed Labour would ‘flatten the whole green belt’.

Labour has pledged to publish a draft National Planning Policy Framework; likely imposing ‘top down’ targets requiring councils to build a certain number of homes, regardless of any local support for them.

Rebecca Harris, Castle Point Conservative Candidate said:

“Your vote on Thursday 4th July will determine if the Green Belt across Castle Point is protected by the Conservatives or concreted over by Labour. Only by voting for the Conservatives will mean we build the right homes in the right places and most importantly protect the Green Belt.

Keir Starmer has made clear his assault on the Green Belt will happen within days if they are elected - stripping local people of their say over where houses are built. We must not surrender our Green Belt here in Castle Point to Labour’s development plans. Vote Conservative on 4th July.”