Alan Mak MP's Parliamentary Questions!

An eagle-eyed HIRA member spotted the following Parliamentary exchange on October 24th 2016 re Havant Borough Council's Draft Housing Plan Statement, between Alan Mak MP and Gavin Barwell Minister of State for, amongst other responsibilities, Housing and Planning:

Please copy and paste this web address into a new tab to see the original debate

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2016-10-24a.14.1&s=speaker%3A25285#g14.2

Alan Mak MP addressing Gavin Barwell:

What steps he is taking to build and develop more homes?

Gavin Barwell Minister of State:

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently announced the £3 billion home building fund to ensure that we are not so reliant on a few large builders, and the £2 billion accelerated construction programme to speed up building on public land. We will be setting out further plans in a White Paper later this year.

Alan Mak MP:

Havant Borough Council is working with communities to update our local plans to ensure that local housing needs are met strategically. Will the Minister join me in congratulating them on their work and welcome their commitment to ensuring that home ownership is within reach of everyone?

Gavin Barwell Minister of State:

I am happy to do that. It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency recently and to meet Councillor David Guest, who is leading this work on behalf of Havant Council, and the great housing associations First Wessex and Radian, which are doing great work in this field.

Hayling Island readers who attended our latest Public Meeting and have been reading this website's recent posts, particularly the 'Yes or No' questions asked of Alan Mak MP, may be somewhat shocked if they had thought that their MP would raise, with the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Hayling Island's unique situation and urgent need of a thorough infrastructure review. Hayling and perhaps also mainland Havant constituents should all be writing to Alan Mak MP expressing their views of this exchange, and asking him exactly how he proposes to help maintain Havant Borough's quality of life and Hayling's unique heritage.

When internet searching our Minister of State for Housing and Planning's fuller title, the online Property Magazine Eye appeared with an article published on July 16th by Rosalind Renshaw in which she outlines his career up to his current appointment. Given Havant's current battle for our green spaces, it is interesting to note this excerpt from Rosalind's article: "While little is known of Barwell’s views on housing, he is keen on protecting green space in his constituency from housing, and also successfully launched a petition to prevent the local council building homes on Croydon’s playing fields." We would like to see Alan Mak MP similarly campaign to protect Havant and Hayling's green space.