BASINGSTOKE and Deane Borough Council (BDBC) leader and a cabinet member have criticised Maria Miller MP of “not showing up” at a recent council meeting and failing to challenge the Government.

Council leader Paul Harvey said Dame Maria gave notice to BDBC that she would present a petition on housing numbers at a council meeting on Thursday, March 21.

However, he was surprised to see her being absent from the meeting despite Conservative councillors asking questions to the ruling group about housing numbers.

Cllr Harvey said: “Maria Miller has spent months building up how absolutely critical it is to ‘slow it down’. People have signed her petition in good faith. When it came to it, she didn’t show up – despite requesting it to be listed on the agenda of the council meeting.”

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Cllr Andy Konieczko, council’s portfolio holder for strategic planning and infrastructure, also criticised the MP for not giving any prior apologies for “not showing up for the meeting”.

“I was asked a question about housing numbers in the local plan, before Dame Maria Miller was supposed to present her petition on the same topic. 

“However, without any prior apologies, she didn't show up - and there seemed to be differing explanations as to why she failed to attend.

“It's been pointed out to me that the meeting agenda made it very clear that there would be a question about local plan housing numbers immediately before Maria's petition, so perhaps the question and Maria's absence are connected.”

Reacting to the councillors' comment, Dame Maria said she decided to delay submitting the petition to ensure it receives "proper and detailed attention".

She told the Gazette: "I was planning to present the community petition calling on BDBC to cut house building, supported by more than 4000 residents last Thursday but have delayed submitting the petition until after the hotly contested local elections on May 2, to ensure it receives proper and detailed attention, hence it wasn’t on the Full Council Meeting Agenda paper.

"If councillors were disappointed to not see me, because of the petition being included in a supplementary paper, then I can assure them I shall attend at the next earliest meeting following their election."

At the council meeting, Cllr Konieczko said the housebuilding targets that the cabinet had set in the local plan was drawn on advice from experts and are evidence-based. 

“We’ve done everything we can; we’ve explored all of the avenues; we even wrote to Michael Gove, the minister responsible, but he ignored us.

“The local Conservative approach, by contrast, isn’t as robust. They selectively reference parts of the national planning guidance that support their claims - but completely ignore important sections that don’t back up their arguments. 

"Rather than proposing an alternative housing number that’s based on hard evidence – which is what an Inspector will look for when assessing our local Ppan - they talk vaguely about a ‘significant reduction’ because we have build a lot of new homes over the past five decades. 

"Unfortunately, over-delivery of homes over a number of past decades isn’t considered to be a viable exceptional circumstance. An inspector won’t allow it. And the Conservatives know that.”

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Cllr Harvey said in a letter to the Gazette that he “fully endorses" Cllr Konieczko’s speech.

“We need to be honest with people about the future of our borough,” he said.

“It is absolutely critical that places like North Waltham and Oakley have meaningful strategic gaps; that communities like Old Basing and Bramley, and many more, are protected from overdevelopment and speculative developers.

“This could not be more serious. We need an MP willing to challenge the Government to give us real power to determine the housing number locally. I feel for all those people who signed her petition in good faith, you deserve better.”

In a post on X before the meeting, Dame Maria said: "I’ve decided not to present our community petition to cut house building numbers at today’s @BasingstokeGov council meeting.

"The fantastic support by over 4k loc [sic] residents deserves proper consideration and it will be presented in May."