As someone who was born and raised in Dorset, reading through the recently released Local Plan was, quite frankly, deeply unsettling.
Reform UK Dorset
The level of development proposed across the countryside is unprecedented and, in our view, deeply damaging. Huge swathes of farmland outside of Dorchester, Crossways, Lytchett Matravers and Lytchett Minster will be lost: many villages will see a close to doubling of their size, and almost all towns will see very significant bolt-on developments. Thousands of houses are proposed to be built on “protected” green belt land, thousands within Dorset National Landscape (AONB), and thousands on or near sites of high environmental importance. The total proposed figures for the Dorset Council Area are circa 45,000 houses over the next 17 years: a loss of around 10,000 acres of farmland, a likely population increase of around 97,000, and an additional 60,000 cars on our roads. Around 98.7 per cent of the proposed development sites are greenfield, vs just 1.3 per cent brownfield – making an absolute mockery of Labour’s ‘brownfield first’ commitment.
Reform UK Dorset views the proposed plan as nothing short of madness. If taken forward, it will turn very significant parts of our unspoiled rural areas into urban sprawl, brutalising our culturally-important landscapes and having a devastating impact on wildlife habitats. The effect on the quality of life for those already living in Dorset will be as dramatic as the effects on our countryside. Already, our road networks around most major conurbations simply do not function; GP and dentist appointments are under massive pressure, as is the broader NHS, but perhaps more important than all of that, our sense of community in Dorset is being completely eroded.
Our view as a party is that it is not possible to have a conversation about housing without first having a very serious one about immigration. It is simply impossible to have net migration running at 900,000+ a year, as the Conservatives did in 2023, and for that not to cause major, major issues with housing demand and supply structures. Historically, immigration has accounted for around 65per cent of population growth, this has, in recent years, jumped to as high as 98 per cent for the year ending June 2024. We view this as a mass immigration crisis first, which has led to a housing crisis. On the former, Reform UK could not be clearer. We will have a net-neutral or even net-negative immigration policy. We will end mass immigration. Period.
Locally, we will fight tooth and nail to oppose the Liberal Democrats’ plans. Our Dorset countryside and farmland should be preserved and protected, not concreted over. Without radical measures to preserve what is left of our rural county, large parts of Dorset will ultimately end up resembling not Hardy’s Wessex, but Betjeman’s Slough. A Reform UK-led Dorset Council will make the preservation of our countryside an absolute priority, and we will be outlining detailed plans to this effect over the next several months.
Thomas Gargrave
Reform UK Dorset
