Hugh Robertson hails national policy announcement that will help battle against KIG

Hugh Robertson, the MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, has today hailed three important, new Conservative Party Policy announcements that would help defeat the Kent International Gateway development proposals.

The commitments were contained in a policy paper ‘Control Shift: Returning power to Local Communities’ launched personally by David Cameron last week.

The three commitments are:-

i) The abolition of all regional planning powers exercised by regional government. The regional authority is backing the KIG proposal so abolition would strengthen the case against the development.

ii) Allowing local referendums on key issues – which, in the case of KIG, would result in a resounding ‘no’ vote.

iii) Abolishing Labour’s planned Infrastructure Planning Commission and replacing it with national policy statements ratified by Parliament. This would allow local MP’s to influence and support the case against KIG.

Hugh Robertson said, “One of the extraordinary features of KIG is that everyone who is elected by those affected opposes the proposal. However, under the current situation, unelected bureaucrats, who are completely unaccountable, seem able to wield a wholly inappropriate amount of influence. Readdressing this balance and restoring power to local people would be very helpful to the case against KIG and is long overdue.”