Alok Sharma, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Reading West, has criticised Labour hypocrisy over saving green spaces and local building targets.

Following the West Berkshire Council meeting on 23 April which discussed housing proposals for the Eastern area of West Berkshire District, Alok Sharma said: “I have been campaigning hard with local residents and the Save Calcot Group to stop any development on the Pincents Hill site and more generally I have a fundamental question about the number of houses which can be sustainably built in our local areas given the huge pressure which new housing will put on already congested roads and over subscribed schools and doctors’ surgeries.”

Alok continued: “The sad fact is though that local councils such as West Berkshire are having minimum targets for building homes being dumped on them by Labour Ministers and Whitehall bureaucrats and the hypocrisy of Labour MPs jumping up and down complaining about building on green spaces in their constituencies really is disgraceful. These same Labour MPs support a Government which, for example, in its response last July to the South East Regional Plan downgraded the protection given to green belts and strategic gaps, making sites like Pincents Hill fair game for developers.”

Alok added: “A future Conservative Government will abolish regional planning and do away with regional building targets. We will enable councils to revise their existing Local Development Frameworks to take account of the abolition of regional planning which will in turn allow local councils to protect land such as green belt and preserve our dwindling green spaces.”

Alok concluded: “I urge all local residents within the Reading West constituency who may be affected to take part in the planning consultation process which West Berkshire Council will be organising and make their views plain.”