‘Milton Keynes of the north’ claim sparks home cost row

Conservative Joe Watt spoke out after council leader James Alexander recently told publicly how he could not afford to buy a home in his own city.

Coun Watt told the Local Plan Working Group that he hoped green fields around York would not be turned into the “Milton Keynes of the north” just so that Coun Alexander could afford a home.

Labour councillors accused him of making a “cheap joke” – prompting him to claim his integrity was being questioned through such “abuse” – but they then spoke of their own and their families’ difficulties in buying a home in York, claiming many other residents were in the same position.

Cabinet member Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing said that as a divorcee, she was renting privately and had no prospect of buying a property, and fellow cabinet member Coun Dave Merrett said his son and daughter had had to go to Pocklington and Goole to be able to afford a home.

Coun Alexander claimed later that political attacks from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat opposition had become increasingly personal.

“But every attack on me for not being able to afford my own home is an attack on a number of hardworking young families across York who are in the same situation,” he said. “The difference is, Labour is on their side.”

The authority revealed recently that the plan, which will determine how York should be developed over 15 years and proposes thousands of new homes on green belt sites, has drawn more than 14,000 opinions.

Conservative councillors such as Chris Steward spoke of their fears that the plan would allow developers to concrete over the green belt rather than build on more expensive brownfield sites, but Coun Merrett said major contributions towards infrastructure costs would be required from any developer wanting to build on greenfield sites.

His Labour colleague Coun Neil Barnes said he did not want to see development “shoe-horned” into urban sites.