BCP Council Must Answer for their Housing Plan Failure

Published: 18 February 2026

Answers are needed for the BCP Council’s failure to address the housing crisis in our towns.

I’m sad to say that local people have been the victims of serious failures of leadership. 

In March of 2025, the council’s draft Local Plan was rejected by a planning inspector for the most basic legal and procedural failings. Local people deserve better than procedural neglect. 

For these shortcomings, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are now without a plan for housing until October 2028. This was both foreseeable and avoidable, and above all simply not good enough. 

I believe that this artificial limitation of housing delivery is an attempt on the part of the BCP Council to shift the responsibility of building homes for its residents to neighbouring councils. 

Without a housing plan, the BCP Council throw away control of where and how homes are built.  

This puts communities at risk of speculative development, a process by which developers purchase land with no affirmation that construction on it will be of benefit to local people. 

The failure sits alongside the axing of funding to Pokesdown Station, and will have consequences in the Government’s infrastructure and devolution plans. 

If a failure of this scale and nature had been made in the private sector, someone would have been fired. Where is the accountability in our local council? Where is the initiative to fix this problem? 

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole needs quality and affordable homes, just as much as anywhere else. 

But building homes isn’t enough. We must build communities. 

That means planning our housing around schools, public transport and green spaces, as well as health and local services that mean people can thrive. 

Residents of BCP cannot afford more years of drift.