LABOUR policies on housing and planning would help get the York Central development off the ground, the party’s housing chief has said.

Shadow minister John Healey was in York yesterday, visiting the 72 hectare site with Labour candidate Rachael Maskell.

His party would fight to break the impasse over such sites, by reversing what he said was seven years of Conservative ministers giving developers freedom to do whatever brings them most profit, he added.

Mr Healey also pledged a strong “brownfield first” policy, as well as an infrastructure investment fund, and stronger powers for councils to drive better bargains with developers, so the homes built on somewhere like York Central would meet needs of the city and not those of commuters or investors.

He also said Labour candidate Rachael Maskell was right to point out that York residents were being hit hard by the housing crisis.

He said: "Although there have been great local initiatives delivering homes, the Conservative government has simply not built enough affordable homes to rent and buy."

Mr Healey added: "Labour’s New Deal on housing will finally give help to first-time buyers and build the affordable homes that York and the rest of the country desperately needs."

While in York he scorned the Prime Minister’s annoucements on workers’ rights, and said:

“Rachael and I both worked with and for Trade Unions for most of our lives, we know how tough it is for people at work after seven years of a government that has given employers a freer and freer hand. I think most people will look with some doubt on what Theresa May has announced today.

“And although it may be a fresh tone we have still to see a real commitment to making workplaces fairer, to making sure people can make a decent income to support themselves and their family, and to make sure that people have someone to stand up for them if they are under pressure or bullied at work.

"That simply doesn’t happen at the moment and it won’t be changed simple by the Prime Minster making a statement in the middle of an election campaign.”