Lewis plans to go further by creating Heath Park, an environmentally friendly development with more than 500 houses, a vertical farm and leisure areas.
However, despite the approval of the council, the proposal was called by the government because of its proximity to chemical installations and potential contamination of the land.
“That’s what it is,” said Lewis. “We have to go through the process.” He claims that concerns were “nonsense” but “you just have to take it on the chin”.
The work has promised to build 1.5 million houses during this Parliament. Delays make this target more difficult.
“There will always be people who are against it, and they tend to shout stronger,” said Lewis. The investigation into the plans was to start in February, but was postponed in September.
Regardless of his high profile, Lewis said he felt frustrated by the slowness of democracy: “If you look at our way of operating our policy, then compare it to the progress of our way of life, it is separated.”
Shore and Pochin said that more houses were necessary – but construction is easier to say than to do, because objections and regulations throw a key in their plans.
“We are considered the poorest cousins,” said Steven Chester, owner of the park’s first aquatic boutique, on the view of London over the northwest. “New people arriving will face the same problems.”
Politices
