One of the things I am truly passionate about is the redevelopment of our towns and cities. In my opinion, a lot of the troubles that beset towns like Yeovil are due to the hollowing out of the town centres. So it was nice to hear of John Hayes, the Shadow Housing Minister, say this.
"...the party would examine how it could be made more cost effective to develop contaminated land which, despite existing tax credits, still costs more than greenfield sites."
Okay, he's saying it more as an afterthought to his "save the green belt" plan, but he's right. Take for example the photo above, it's of an old building that was used as a leather tannery, on the corner of the A30 Reckleford and Eastland Road here in Yeovil. I don't know how long it's been like that, but I arrived in Yeovil in 1996, and it's certainly been lying derelict for that length of time. The reason why the only people who occupy the site are squatters and drug users is that there's cyanide in the ground, a legacy of the tanning process, and it will cost upwards of £1 million to clear up, I'm told.
There's no shortage of housing need in Yeovil, since that tannery's been empty, whole new estates have grown up on the west side of Yeovil. Despite generous tax credits allowed to developers to clear up the Tannery site, it's still cheaper to dig up a greenfield site on the edge of town, rather than build in the middle. If people really want to save the green belt, then we've got to be prepared to buy these sites, clean them up ourselves and sell them on for development.
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