Housing - ‘Too little, too late’

‘Too little, too late’: Hinds must answer for East Hampshire planning failures

Liberal Democrat candidate says housing crisis predates Labour and East Hampshire needs a fairer deal

Dominic Martin has written to East Hampshire MP Damian Hinds, calling for a fairer approach to housing targets and challenging Conservatives nationally and locally to be honest about how East Hampshire reached its current position.

The Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate says the Government’s housing formula is seriously flawed for a district like East Hampshire. However, the problem started when the Conservatives put in place cookie-cutter housing targets that failed to reflect local circumstances back in 2018, including not allowing for 57% of the district’s land lying within the South Downs National Park. Labour’s latest change has made the problem even worse, increasing East Hampshire’s calculated housing requirement by nearly 100%, putting even greater pressure on communities outside the National Park.

But these problems did not start with Labour in 2024. After the Conservatives introduced the housing-target system in 2018, East Hampshire has now spent eight years without getting a replacement Local Plan over the line. And figures published this week show that the district has been unable to meet even the previous Conservative housing targets.

By contrast, neighbouring Liberal Democrat-led councils facing significant planning constraints have succeeded in adopting plans. Winchester adopted its plan in March 2026, while Chichester did so in August 2025 despite major road, wastewater and water-neutrality pressures - and around 67% of Chichester District lying within the South Downs National Park, an even higher proportion than East Hampshire’s 57%.

East Hampshire has built thousands of homes, but not enough that local people can afford. Fewer than three in ten homes built since 2011 were classed as affordable, and last year just 18 were homes for social rent - despite an estimated need for around 600 affordable homes a year.

Dominic Martin said:

“The present housing formula is seriously flawed for East Hampshire, and it needs to change. But our planning difficulties did not begin in 2024, and it is not credible to suggest that responsibility lies with the Labour Government alone.

“The fundamental problem is having inflexible targets that don’t reflect local circumstances. 57% of East Hampshire lies within a National Park with its own planning authority. Protecting the National Park is absolutely right, but that should not simply mean putting ever greater housing pressure on the communities outside it.

“Damian Hinds has understood that problem for years. It is fair to ask why fourteen years of Conservative government failed to put in place a better system, when he was East Hampshire’s MP, served as a government minister and sat in Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education.

“National policy has made putting in place a Local Plan much harder. But it cannot explain everything. Winchester and Chichester have managed to adopt plans while facing similar, serious constraints. East Hampshire has now gone eight years without getting a replacement plan over the line.

“The result is that we have lost too much control over where development goes. Without an up-to-date plan and enough housing land against the national target, planning rules tilt the balance in favour of development, making speculative applications much harder to resist. East Hampshire is becoming a speculative development ‘Wild West’.

“And after all that development, we still have far too few homes local people can genuinely afford, while residents understandably question whether water, roads, schools, GP services and other infrastructure have kept pace.

“That is the bigger picture: an unfair national housing system, too little local control over development, too few genuinely affordable homes and infrastructure struggling to keep up.

“Labour must take responsibility for the current housing formula and change it. But Conservatives nationally and locally also need to be candid about their record. This is not about blame for its own sake - it is about being honest about how we got here so that we can put it right.”

EHDC Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Emily Young said:

“East Hampshire is now in a very difficult position. We need new homes, but they must be the right homes in the right places, supported by the infrastructure communities need.

“Our focus now has to be on restoring confidence in planning, putting infrastructure at the heart of decisions and delivering substantially more genuinely affordable homes.

“We need to learn from what has gone wrong, use the powers we still have locally and make sure the next stage of plan-making puts East Hampshire in a much stronger position.”

The intervention follows proposals from Liberal Democrat councillors for clearer interim safeguards on planning applications affected by water constraints, including greater transparency, cumulative-impact assessment and stronger scrutiny where water or wastewater concerns remain unresolved.

Cllr Martin Tod, Leader of Winchester City Council, said:

“In Winchester, the Liberal Democrat administration have made sure we’ve kept our planning system under control.  Now we want the same for the new unitaries being formed from our authorities.  With local government reorganisation ahead, we have an opportunity to create a genuinely joined-up Local Plan for the new unitary area - planning homes, transport, water, schools and health infrastructure together – protecting and enhancing nature - and learning from what has worked, and what has not, across the existing councils.”