Speaking to the specific unsuitability of Bowland for construction, he added: “Dropping blocks of beige housing – this area seems to specialise in hideous and overpriced executive homes – would at best attract some retirees.
“Alternatively, if truly affordable housing were built in any useful quantities, the Government would have to seriously consider a new town project of some kind. The nearest urban areas – Preston, Blackburn, Lancaster – currently have deep-set housing, social and transport problems of their own.”
Mr Moss maintained that constructing such a town would spark travel chaos, as the winding country lanes are ill-suited to carrying the traffic of a new town. What’s more, he insisted, sweeping through the countryside, building cheap homes, would devastate the little wildlife the UK has left.
In 2024, Ms Rayner backed the PM when he said his Government would loosen up planning regulations in order to speed up the building process. She said stridently that “we can’t have a situation where a newt is more protected than people who desperately need housing”.
However, Mr Moss disagreed. He argued: “Much of British wildlife is threatened. Nightingales, badgers, dormice, otters, butterflies, dragonflies, kingfishers, tufted ducks and egrets are just some of the beautiful creatures that the extant, already damaged natural areas help to conserve. If we wipe these out, and destroy the places they inhabit, what is there for people to do, to see, to admire?”
