It’s fair to say the Labour party did not have a difficult election campaign. Its victory was so assured that attention had long since turned to what it would do in its first 100 days in power. As the cliché goes, the hard work starts now. The party, even with its significant majority, now faces the challenge of converting proposals into action.
We discuss in our cover feature this week how a core part of Labour’s manifesto – its ambitious housebuilding plans – would affect the housebuilders themselves. On this topic, reforms can be expected early on from a new government. At the very least they are likely to involve new frameworks for councils that tip the balance in favour of building, and central government taking greater control of decision-making.
That’s a reasonable enough strategy, given greenbelt land is in some cases not as sacrosanct as it’s made out to be, or as current rules imply. Whether there are enough workers in the construction industry and related trades to help fulfil these plans, or any of those put forward by the major parties, is another question.