Lib Dems: Housing pits Nimbys against Yimbys

The Lib Dems have been accused of Nimbyism for opposing house-building locally. Although party leader Sir Ed Davey’s denied his party was a blocker of new homes, the party hasn’t been able to shake the reputation.

A few examples suggest why. Charlie Maynard, the new MP for Witney, posted in July, external to say there’s “far too much reliance on housebuilding to grow our economy”. And in 2020, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, opposed plans, external to build almost 11,000 homes in Oxford by 2036.

At one conference event, there was no hiding the tension between the party’s housing targets and local Lib Dem opposition to some developments.

Jamie Rumbelow, whose company Tract build tools to navigate the planning system, said the Lib Dems had shown a “lack of interest” in the specifics of how to build new homes.

He said the Lib Dems needed to “address this leftist form of Nimbyism” to support housebuilding”.

Pippa Heylings, the new Lib Dem MP for South Cambridgeshire, agreed that not enough was being doing to build new homes.

But she said the argument needed to move away from Nimbys vs Yimbys, and branded deregulation a “false economy”.