New Town in Essex

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am particularly fortunate that you are in the Chair as I make the case for a new town in Essex, because you are a fellow Essex Member. Given the strains and stresses with the need for housing, I know we share the same ambition that we want to do our bit in Essex. Irrespective of exactly where we want to do this—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing will come on to this in his brief response—garden towns are a splendid idea, and I know that Epping Forest and Southend West stand united in doing our bit on housing.

My hon. Friend the Minister is probably puzzled by what has triggered all this, but some months ago I was asked to chair a meeting of Essex MPs with leaders and chief executives of their local authorities. There was a pretty broad agenda, but at the heart of it all was the issue of housing. I absolutely applaud what the Government are doing with North Essex Garden Communities and the Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission, which wants a minimum of 1 million homes, which are needed to support economic growth in the Thames estuary, by 2050. That equates to 31,000 per year. There has also been an excellent paper from Policy Exchange, “Tomorrow’s Places: A plan for building a generation of new millennial towns on the edge of London”.

It occurred to me that, as all parliamentarians know, whenever there is a decision to build something in or near their area, there will be a group of people who are not too keen on it. The area that I represent, Southend West, is an oblong alongside the Thames estuary, and there is literally nowhere to build—we cannot build on the parks we have—so I thought it was wrong for me to suggest precisely where in Essex such new building could take place. Then I suddenly thought that I am the first and last Member of Parliament for the constituency of Basildon, which was the largest and most successful new town in the country. In those heady days of 1983, I represented Basildon and Jerry Hayes represented Harlow.

A number of my colleagues wanted to be in the Chamber for the debate, but obviously other things are happening in our country at the moment. In particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) wanted to be able to tell my hon. Friend the Minister that Harlow is an extraordinary place of aspiration, opportunity, achievement and community. Many people come to Harlow from the edges of town to make their lives better, to have good-quality housing and to be surrounded by green spaces. Our right hon. Friend believes, rightly, that it is

“a place of achievement because we invented fibre optic communications and are a renowned sculpture town”—

I am beginning to think he, too, is bidding for his town to be a city—

“and we will soon be the home of Public Health England making us the public health-science capital of the world. Our new Enterprise Zone and Advanced Manufacturing Centre will provide education, skills and training to our young people so that they can climb the Ladder of Opportunity.”

Our right hon. Friend believes that Harlow has brilliant schools and a wonderful hospital, but any further help the Government can give it as it prospers and develops would be greatly appreciated.

When I say that I am the first and last Member of Parliament for Basildon, it is true. Much has been written and much has been said about the issue, but perhaps I could describe the semantics of who has represented Basildon as the devil at work. I want the House to know that when I was elected in extraordinary circumstances in 1983, I had five local colleagues: Sir Bernard Braine, Sir Edward Gardner, Sir Richard Body, Sir Bob McCrindle and Harvey Proctor. After the 1979 election, the Boundary Commission decided that the new town should stand alone, with the eight wards of Fryerns Central, Fryerns East, Langdon Hills, Lee Chapel North, Nethermayne, Pitsea East, Pitsea West and Vange. I and my family lived in Nethermayne. We had all represented the new town, but as part of a much larger area. When I won the seat in 1983, it was against an extraordinary background, because every single district and county councillor was Labour and the key officers, who were supposed to be impartial, were also Labour. It was me against an army of people trying to do me down, as it seemed at the time.

I want to say to my hon. Friend the Minister, looking at housing in Essex, that my experience of the new town, through the development corporation and the Commission for the New Towns, was absolutely first class. I and the then Member for Harlow had the same chairman, Dame Elizabeth Coker—sadly, she has now died—who was absolutely wonderful, and a brilliant chief executive called Douglas Galloway. As we know, if such projects are going to be successful, they need strong leadership.

Since 1997, the Boundary Commission has intervened again, but the media did not seem to understand that and a few people pretended that the constituency was still Basildon. Well, it was not: as it is now, it is partly Basildon and Billericay and partly South Basildon and East Thurrock, and since then two representatives have always represented the town. It looks, unless the Boundary Commission changes its mind, that I will be the first and last Member of Parliament for Basildon.

Those were 15 glorious years. Our family was raised there—all the children were born at the local hospital—and our children were educated there. We had very happy times, although we did have some unpleasant incidents when, for whatever reason, the opposition attacked my family about the way I educated my children. They did not go to private schools; they just wanted a Catholic education in a single-sex school, but forces went to work against that. In one of the most extraordinary events, at one election—in those days, only four Conservative MPs were anti-fox hunting, of whom I was one—leaflets were distributed by the opposition saying that I was pro-fox hunting, even though somebody from the League Against Cruel Sports was involved. Fortunately, however, my wonderful agent—I think it was the late Barbara Allen—threatened litigation, and a substantial amount of money went to charity. Some very unpleasant things happened, but most of it was really very positive in every sense of the word.

I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that the development corporation and the Commission for the New Towns put in all the infrastructure that was needed. We had the roads, the schools and the industrial sites for businesses. Every single week, I was opening a new factory, a new plant or a new business. Royalty came to Basildon. In fact, although it had nothing at all to do with me, Basildon-mania took hold of the country. We had visits from Sir John Major and Baroness Thatcher. Everyone wanted to visit Basildon and see what was happening with this economic miracle.

I would say to my hon. Friend the Minister that there were certainly two miracles during my time that I was very proud of. The first was St Luke’s Hospice. It started with a penny from Trudy Cox, and the hospice now supports a very wide community. That was a miracle for human beings—it was opened by Princess Diana and the Duchess of Norfolk—and then we had a miracle for animals when we opened the horse, pony and donkey sanctuary. There is an Act of Parliament—I assume it is still there—that I promoted to stop such animals being cruelly tethered.

Wonderful things happen in Basildon. When I started, we had one police station, and by the time I left in 1997, we had three. Not one person was murdered in the 15 years that I was there. There were no school closures: we stopped them happening. There was a crazy suggestion that the A&E should close and move to Orsett, as should the maternity unit, but we stopped it. In those days, one could stop things more easily than today—a silver birch forest was to be razed to the ground, but we stopped that from happening. Sadly, after 1997, there were school closures, the hospital went into special measures after a time, and the silver birch forest was razed to the ground. It was very unfortunate indeed.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and I were invited to attend the 70th anniversary of the founding of Basildon. It was not exactly a trip down memory lane—many of the people I knew had gone or moved on—but he and I sat there and listened to what was said. It was not quite as we remembered, but my hon. Friends the Members for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) are doing a splendid job in jointly representing the town.

I come now to the crux of my speech. We all accept that we need more housing. When I got off at Fenchurch Street and went to Tower Hill, I saw people sleeping on the pavements. That is not acceptable. I remember when Mother Teresa came to the House. When she met Baroness Thatcher, she said, “What are these people doing?” It has always happened, and of course many of them have mental health problems and it is a real struggle to house them, but there is a housing shortage. The Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission has estimated that a minimum of 1 million new homes will be needed by 2050 to match population rises and to support economic growth throughout the region. As I have said, that is the equivalent of 31,000 homes a year, which is certainly an ambitious target.

At one time in Basildon we had 40,000 homes in public ownership, which is a huge number. Under the right to buy, which I supported, many were sold, but it was found that 10,000 were affected by clay heave and no one could get insurance for those properties, so we persuaded the then Housing Minister, now Lord Patten, to repurchase 10,000 properties. One can imagine what that meant for local residents.

Every builder had a go at designing an estate in Basildon. One estate was known as “Alcatraz”—they were not all totally successful—but by and large people valued the home they had been given. It was the east end displaced. That is where I come from. Many of my relatives moved there from London, and some still live there. They were thrilled to get their first house. Some might say, “Oh, but they weren’t very attractive,” and all the rest of it, but people had a home, a place to educate their children, a shopping centre and good transport. As far as I am concerned, the new towns were very successful.

If new towns are delivered in the right way, they not only offer affordable homes to many, but become new communities that people want to be part of. They create jobs, infrastructure links and new opportunities. When planned holistically, a new town can address our housing crisis while protecting existing communities from sprawl and the overbearing impact on local services and infrastructure.

It cannot be beyond our wit today to replicate those successes in another part of Essex. I have been here so long that it is an awful long time since I have heard anything original said: people talk enthusiastically, but it has all been said and done before—it is just reinventing the wheel and coming full circle. We do not need terribly clever people to tell us we already have two success stories in Harlow and Basildon. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, however, that while we do not have space in Southend West, there is space in other parts of Essex.

Essex is a wonderful county. Some people say that Kent is God’s own county, but I happen to think that Essex is God’s own county. It is vibrant and extremely well led, and it is entirely understandable that people would want to move there. I know that the Minister is going to tell me about three projects he has in hand, but, whatever the political situation at the moment, the Government should grasp the nettle and do it. Let us build on the successes we already have. One could not find anyone more enthusiastic than me, I am, the first and last MP for Basildon, for a new town in Essex.