Simon Dudley is Senior Fellow at Onward.
Last week marked the end of my four and a half years as Chair of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) – a role to which I was appointed by No.10 as a Conservative and, unsurprisingly under the new government, not reappointed for a second term.
EDC was one of the Government’s flagship attempts to build at scale, at pace, and with purpose. Our mission was simple: deliver thousands of homes on largely brownfield land, next to a high-speed rail station, with public realm and community facilities that would make any town proud.
In theory, it should have been easy. The political will was there. The land was there. The local support – broadly speaking – was there. And yet, we found ourselves locked in a permanent war with a planning system rigged for delay, paralysis, and decline. A system in which risk-averse regulators, obscure environmental objections, and outright political cowardice block the homes this country so desperately needs.
The best example? A final major development parcel – again, brownfield and next to transport links – was effectively halted by Natural England because of the supposed presence of a colony of jumping spiders.
Here’s the punchline: they weren’t even there.
Natural England designated part of the Swanscombe Peninsula – land vital to Ebbsfleet’s growth – as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), citing the presence of these spiders. But exhaustive surveys on our own land found nothing. Not one eight-legged culprit. These were mythical spiders. And yet, around 1,300 homes are now dead in the water – sacrificed at the altar of environmental virtue-signalling.
This is not just bureaucratic absurdity. It is vandalism.
And the real scandal is that the Labour Government – and its Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook – have done nothing to stop it. In fact, Pennycook actively refused to remove the SSSI designation, even knowing the homes were vital and the species unconfirmed. A minister supposedly committed to solving Britain’s housing crisis, choosing myth over homes.
But then, should we be surprised?
Pennycook has spent his entire political career opposing development. In his own patch, he fought over 1,500 new homes in Greenwich and has never once stood up to the NIMBY lobby. Now, in office, his record is no better. Labour’s surrender on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and Pennycook’s appointment itself send a clear message: this Government does not care about fixing the housing crisis. It wants to manage it, not solve it.
The result? A country where the housing system is not just broken – it is weaponised against progress.
We need honesty. We need ambition. And we need to bury the fantasy that 300,000 homes a year will fix anything. That number – repeated like a chant in Westminster – is political wallpaper. It sounds serious but it isn’t. To even begin addressing our backlog, we need to be building nearer 600,000 homes a year. Even if net migration were halved tomorrow, the problem would remain. It is a decades-old supply crunch, and there is only one cure: build more.
As Chair of Homes England and later of EDC, I saw what makes things work – and what stops them. What works is private enterprise, local leadership, and a willingness to take risks. What stops it is Whitehall dithering, endless regulation, and the demonisation of builders by politicians who need scapegoats.
When developers put capital on the line to create new homes and communities, they deserve support – not to be blocked by mythical spiders and performative ministers.
And while we’re at it, let’s drop the myth that the public hate new homes. What they hate is ugly, disconnected sprawl. But they welcome growth when it comes with vision, infrastructure, and beauty – as we saw at Ebbsfleet, and as I delivered in Windsor and Maidenhead.
If we want to stop paving over the real countryside, we need to stop treating cities like museums. Much of the green belt is neither green nor pleasant – it is disused scrubland, fenced-off car parks, and muddy wasteland behind a B&Q. Yet politicians still invoke it like it is sacred scripture.
We need to redraw it – rationally, not reverently. We need a Builder’s Remedy for councils that block growth. And we need a Housing Minister who understands the scale of the crisis and is willing to act – not someone who spent years blocking homes and now lectures the industry from behind a desk.
Matthew Pennycook is not that minister. His instincts are insular, tribal, and anti-growth. His tenure will be defined not by reform, but by retreat. The longer he stays in post, the longer this crisis will fester.
And worst of all, I fear Labour will never provide the capital funding required to deliver the heart of Ebbsfleet – Ebbsfleet Central – a project with planning permission, mass support, and the potential to deliver thousands of homes on prime brownfield land. If this Government lets it stall, it will be proof that their housing rhetoric is just that: rhetoric.
So let’s be clear. We don’t need more reviews. We don’t need more buzzwords. We need bulldozers.
The Conservative Party must find its voice again as the party of homeownership, aspiration, and growth. That means facing down the blockers – whether they come wearing spider badges or Labour rosettes.
It’s time to stop asking permission. It’s time to start building.