I hope Nimbys in all places tackle this dishonest authorities and its lunatic plans to desecrate the countryside within the identify of progress: STEPHEN GLOVER

What is the most wanton damage that Labour will inflict on us over the next few years? It could be the irreversible destruction of much of our countryside.

Onerous taxes can be undone by a future government that is sane, if we ever have one again. Spending can be reduced. Defence expenditure can be increased. The NHS can be reformed.

But once England is ruined (I say ‘England’ because the devolved administrations largely have their own planning powers), there’s no turning back, nothing anyone can do to clear up the mess.

Labour wants to concrete over England with new homes – 1.5 million of them in this Parliament. It plans to criss-cross the country, and in particular East Anglia, with more than 600 miles of pylons. It wants to double the amount of onshore wind, and quadruple offshore wind.

It also intends to carpet the countryside with new solar panels at the expense of good farming land, despite their notorious inefficiency in a country where the sun doesn’t shine all that often.

Labour wants to concrete over England with new homes – 1.5 million of them in this Parliament. Pictured, Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner ahead of the PM’s ‘plan for change’ speech on Thursday

Dishonesty

These revolutionary measures will be rammed through – so ministers hope – by changing planning laws so that local communities will be powerless to resist these huge, transformational developments.

You may say: some things are inevitable, even if they are undesirable. We need more houses and, in a world where the reality of climate change can hardly be denied, we must have more sources of alternative energy.

I disagree. I believe that the case for more housing is built on a fundamental dishonesty, and the argument that we must have a never- ending stream of new onshore wind farms, pylons and solar panels is flawed.

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner wrote an article in the Sunday Telegraph in which she whacked so-called Nimbys, who are supposedly concerned only with their own backyards. She promised a faster planning system in which officials will rubber stamp developments, and more or less ignore local representatives.

Ange was repeating what the PM said last week, when he unveiled his underwhelming ‘six milestones’, one of which is to build 1.5 million new homes. Sir Keir undertook to deal with an ‘alliance of naysayers’ who oppose planning applications, and to end the ‘nonsense’ of red tape holding up major projects.

What struck me about the Prime Minister’s remarks and Angela Rayner’s article – and indeed every single utterance about the housing shortage ever made by Labour ministers – is that there was no mention of the major contributory cause: mass immigration. That’s what I mean by dishonesty.

The deputy PM, pictured on BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, has promised a faster planning system in which officials will rubber stamp developments and more or less ignore local representatives

In every single utterance about the housing shortage made by Labour ministers, there is no mention of the major contributory cause – mass immigration

This Government wants to rip up planning laws. It has no qualms about building new houses on the green belt and farming land. But it never, ever admits that there is a choice. If immigration were controlled, there would be no need to cover England with new homes.

The Office for National Statistics recently admitted that it had underestimated the number of people arriving in the UK (nearly all of them in England). Net migration in the year to June 2023 was a record 906,000. That is twice the population of Bristol. In a single year.

Foolishness

These are extraordinary numbers, for which the previous government was entirely responsible. Voters won’t easily forgive the Tories. But Sir Keir is also much at fault. Although he said last week that he has a ‘duty’ to bring down immigration, he didn’t say how and it’s not one of his ‘milestones’.

Huge numbers of immigrants have to be found somewhere to live. Some of those who are students will go into university accommodation but many will enter the rental market. Over time, a significant number will buy homes – as have their predecessors before them.

The Migration Watch think tank has an excellent record for accurately predicting immigration figures. Last year, it suggested that the UK population will increase from around 67 million to between 83 and 87 million by 2046 if net migration persists at a rate of just over 600,000 per year, a figure which it has in fact recently exceeded.

According to Migration Watch, a population explosion of this magnitude would require between six and eight million new homes in little more than 20 years. That is equivalent to up to 18 cities the size of Birmingham.

If immigration were controlled, there would be no need to cover England with new homes. Net migration in the year to June 2023 was a record 906,000 – twice the population of Bristol

Migration Watch’s analysis of Office for National Statistics data suggests that, even at around half its present level, immigration would account for 57 per cent of all additional households in England until 2043.

In other words, even if the number of people arriving in this country were cut in two, the majority of new homes would still be attributable to immigration. At present levels, the proportion would be much higher.

Many young people have been priced out of the housing market, which has all kinds of undesirable social consequences. But unless net migration is much more significantly reduced than is contemplated by Labour, it’s hard to see how the young will benefit from Angela Rayner’s new homes, assuming that they are built.

There is a parallel foolishness in the mind of Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband. Supported by the PM, he intends to despoil the countryside with pylons, wind turbines and solar farms. He, too, will bin planning restrictions so he can proceed with the desecration of England unimpeded.

Few doubt the benefits of alternative energy, though it will never supply all our energy needs, and if Mr Miliband believes otherwise (which he may well) we will be waiting in our scarves and overcoats to boil our kettles before the end of the decade.

Zealot

It is the sheer manic lunacy of his project that so appals. Why do we need so many more onshore wind turbines? Why the obsession with inefficient solar farms? Does he never consider the unsightliness of pylons, which are required by new sources of energy such as offshore turbines? If pylons really are needed, why can’t cables be put underground instead, albeit at greater cost?

Mr Miliband is a zealot, as is Ms Rayner, and probably the seemingly stolid Sir Keir. They pursue their goals blindly, without employing such grey matter as their maker cared to bestow on them.

So-called ‘planners’ in the 1960s were encouraged by the then Labour government and Labour councils to pull apart the centres of our ancient historic towns and cities, though the Tories certainly joined in, too.

Now Labour is coming back, with millions of houses and countless monstrosities, to lay waste precious countryside – the soul of England, where the hearts even of city folk often reside. This destruction is either avoidable or needless or both.

I hope Nimbys across our land will rise up and take on this blinkered, rapacious Government by every legal means within their grasp. They won’t be fighting for their own backyards, but for England.