shadow housing minister visits skelmersdale

Adrian Owens, the Conservative General Election welcomed Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps to Skelmersdale on Wednesday where they held a meeting with local residents.

Adrian, along with Tanhouse Conservative candidate Cindy Miller, took the MP for Welwyn Hatfield on a brief tour of Skelmersdale followed by a meeting with several Skelmersdale residents, including local Estate Management Board members, at Digmoor Community Centre in Birleywood.

Adrian said, "The Shadow Minister understands the challenges faced by New Towns as he has two such developments, Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City, in his own constituency."

"He was very impressed by the ideas that residents had for regenerating Skelmersdale and impressed upon them that a future Conservative Government would allow local people a real say on how their housing needs will be addressed. He explained our plans to encourage councils to build more homes by matching local authorities’ council tax take for each new house built for six years, with special incentives for affordable housing. We would also allow the creation of new Local Housing Trusts with new freedoms to develop homes as long as there is strong community backing;

"People are fed up with Labour's centralised, bureaucratic control over the planning system which all too often ignores local need. West Lancashire Borough Council is the only local authority in Lancashire building council homes and, for all the Labour Group's posturing, they failed to build a single council home when they were in charge of the council from the mid 1990s until 2002."

Skelmersdale resident Jennifer Holmes attending the meeting and said, "The meeting with the Shadow Minister was very positive and we were all interested in what he had to say. He listened carefully to our ideas and was pleased to learn that we have a passion for making our town a better place to live.

"We agreed with him that governments should trust people more and allow them a greater say in their community rather than have centrally imposed targets imposed upon us from Whitehall."

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