Harriett Baldwin, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire received a response from the Prime Minister's office on the petition to suspend the Regional Spatial Strategy. The response was sent hours after the resignation of both the Housing Minister Margaret Beckett and the Communities and Local Government Minister Hazel Blears. As Gordon Brown organised his botched reshuffle and fought for his political survival, the following response was sent from Number 10 Downing Street:
"The Government does not agree with the proposition that regional housing targets determined through Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) should be suspended.
The Government is committed to regional planning and allocation of housing numbers to the district level through the existing RSS system."
Harriett Baldwin said, "This appalling response shows that this weakened government is still on auto-pilot to force our South Worcestershire District Councils to plan for 24,500 homes over the next 15 years. A Conservative government has pledged to abolish this top-down imposition of excessive housing numbers. Of course we need to build some new homes, but it should be for our locally elected councillors to decide how many. This is another good reason why we need a General Election as soon as possible."
The full text of the Prime Minister's response can be found here: