Godalming Nub News is delighted to welcome a new columnist: Waverley borough councillor for Binscombe, Nick Palmer.

Nick was Labour MP for Broxtowe from 1997-2010 after a career in IT, and is currently chair of the constituency Labour Party, and as councillor for Binscombe is on the executive of Waverley Borough Council.

He is currently head of Britain's largest farm animal welfare charity, Compassion in World Farming UK, based in Godalming.

Nick speaks six languages and runs a spare-time translation business. He has three published books on board games, and is the former world champion of the game of Diplomacy.

In his first column, he asks: Does Godalming need an uncontrolled surge of expensive homes?

As you may have seen, the Government is proposing to change the planning process. Briefly, they want to build over 50% more homes in areas of high demand like ours, and fewer in areas with low demand like Liverpool.

They'll require councils to designate areas for housing growth, and in those areas developers can just press ahead with building plans without needing outline planning permission.

There's no denying that we're short of housing that people on average income can afford – when I was elected a couple of years ago, it was THE main issue on the doorstep. In my office, at least half the staff live up to an hour's drive away, because they can't afford the prices here.

So is the Government right? Well, it'll be hard to do that in Godalming without sprawling into the Green Belt or building tower blocks as they've done in Woking.

And there's a sting in the tail – they are reducing the requirement for social and affordable housing. At present, if you're building a small development of up to 10 homes, you don't need to make some of them "affordable". The Government wants to increase that by up to 50, so a developer could build 49 expensive homes in a new development without a single affordable one.

So the net effect will be to increase pressure on the Green Belt without actually helping people who struggle to afford Godalming at the moment. And because the power to control development in growth areas will be removed from the council (indeed they're still thinking of abolishing the borough council altogether), the criteria will primarily be set in Whitehall.

Labour argues that this is perverse – what we want to see is more controlled development with the focus on homes for sale and rent that most people can afford. And we think that there should be a much stronger incentive for developers who get planning permission to actually build, rather than sit around for years, leaving us to contemplate derelict building sites until the developer finally decides to build.

And finally, we do want to see more housing in deprived areas too – people deserve a chance at decent housing whether they live in Godalming, Liverpool or anywhere else.

More uncontrolled, expensive housing with the constant threat to the Green Belt is the last thing we need. Haven't the Conservatives simply lost touch with the reality of most people's lives?