Keir Starmer’s war on NIMBYs might have to start closer to home after the Milibands objected to the construction of a block of flats near their family home. The Prime Minister has declared NIMBYs, an acronym for not in my backyard, as a stumbling block to economic growth and has vowed to reform planning laws to enable his government to build 1.5 million new homes this parliament.
However it is understood that Dame Justine Thornton, the wife of energy secretary Ed Miliband, has argued against the construction of a new block of flats near the family home, claiming that they are “too tall, too bulky and too dense”. Thornton advised Camden council that they should rethink the design of the flats due to be built close to the family’s £3 million home in Dartmouth Park, North London. The perceived hypocrisy is even starker given Miliband’s promise to “take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists” who oppose his audacious green agenda.
The building of 1.5 million homes is one of the Starmer government’s central pledges with planning reform sitting at the heart of Housing Secretary Angela Rayner’s housing mission.
