Key Angela Rayner ally slams new city plan for 20,000 houses

It was a pet project of Angela Rayner. As Deputy Prime Minister in charge of housing she raved about plans to build a dozen towns of up to 20,000 homes each across the UK.

They would ‘restore hope to people who could not afford to buy or rent’ and help solve the housing crisis, she enthused.

That was before Rayner was sacked for herself not paying the right amount of stamp duty on a second property.

But now one of Rayner’s closest allies has slammed her plans to build a new town on green-belt land on the edge of the Peak District that is popular with Premier League footballers and celebrities.

Pet project: As Deputy Prime Minister in charge of housing, Angela Rayner raved about plans to build a dozen towns of up to 20,000 homes each across the UK

Gerald Cooney, who was Rayner’s election agent and chaired the powerful £31 billion Greater Manchester Pension Fund, says the site – on the ancient Adlington estate between Manchester and Macclesfield – is in completely the wrong place and is all about developers ‘making a lot of money’.

‘If you were building a new town in this area, you don’t need it there,’ he said, adding the area ‘doesn’t need new executive homes – we already have plenty of them’.

Camilla Legh sold her ancestral home and 2,000 acres of surrounding farmland that had been in her family for 700 years for £25 million in 2023. The buyer, developer Belport, stands to make much more than that after the site was unexpectedly picked as one of Rayner’s new towns in September.

Belport has promised to make up to 40 per cent of the proposed new homes ‘affordable’, meaning they would be offered at a fifth below market value to attract key workers. But the cheapest two-bedroom house on a neighbouring site costs £450,000.

It added that the scheme was not for executive housing and the new town would help increase supply ‘at scale, alongside schools, health facilities, transport infrastructure and jobs’.

Cooney, who was suspended by the Labour Party in February for raising concerns over two MPs and councillors making derogatory remarks about constituents on social media, says other areas should be considered instead. They include the existing commuter belt and brownfield sites in Greater Manchester where the ‘biggest waiting lists’ are, he said.

A final decision on the sites will be made next spring.