UK housing: a crisis in the Conservative heartlands

Leading a new political party requires broad shoulders, as Susan Parker found out after setting up the Guildford Greenbelt Group in 2015. GGG was set up on a shoestring only six months before local elections in 2015 but reaped 20,000 votes, a striking result in the wealthy English market town. The embryonic party won three council seats which in living memory had always been Conservative and came second in nearly 20 other wards. The emergence of such protest parties is one reflection of the ferocious politics that surround the issue of housing in the UK and which is hugely divisive for the ruling Conservatives. Click here for the full FT article (£)