New Development Campaign Pack

Having a newbuild housing development in your ward will impact both your campaigning and the work you do as a councillor.

A whole set of new issues will likely be raised with you that could range from construction site problems, management fees, maintenance of open spaces and access to local facilities such as schools and GP surgeries.

You will also have new residents moving into your ward, sometimes gradually over a long period, for you to communicate with and establish yourself with as the hard-working local Lib Dem team.

With the government setting more ambitious housebuilding targets for councils, having new housing developments in Lib Dem wards could be more common on the future.

This campaign pack looks at some of the main ways you can engage with and represent your new communities.

Engaging New Voters

A newbuild development could bring hundreds, if not thousands, of new voters into your ward. Large developments can take several years to complete, with new residents gradually moving in all the time.

Having a good system in place to welcome new voters to the area is vital.

New Voter Letters

This is an essential system to get in place for wards with significant influx of new voters. Send regular letters out to people newly added to the electoral register. These welcome residents, introduce the local Lib Dem team and should include a short survey for them to complete on their first impressions of their new home.

This is a wonderful first impression to make!

Often residents in newbuild properties will need particular support – some may not even have council tax codes or household bins – and you can be there to help with a timely letter to introduce yourself.

If you are a councillor you may be able to obtain a list of all new voters on the electoral register in your ward each month from your council’s electoral services team. Or you can use the Age-Registration Date filter on the ‘Create a List’ menu on Connect to identify new voters on the register.

With a regular list of new voters to write too, you can get in the habit of sending our new voter letters every month, or at least every couple of months, and be the first to get to people as they move into the area.

Election Workshop offer a monthly bulk buy deal for printing and posting direct mail. You can make use of this to send your rolling letters out to new voters. Postage is cheaper than the cost of a second class stamp.

Resident Surveys and Knock and Drops

Once a significant part of a new build estate is occupied, you should door-knock those streets to introduce yourself personally. Distributing a Knock and Drop Survey is a great way to re-enforce that you are there to help them with local issues – and it will get you valuable data such as email addresses to help you keep in touch.

Common Issues in New Build Estates

New housing developments often share common issues that may come up time and time again.

Lack of facilities

New estates can lack basic facilities that are taken for granted on older streets. Simple things such as post boxes, public bins, grit bins, pedestrian crossings, adequate street lighting, play areas or well landscaped green spaces can all be inadequately provided in new build estates. These can be great simple wins that we can call on the council or the housing developer to provide.

There are also more significant facilities that new build communities might lack – such as access to pharmacists, dentists, GPs, even school places that are not over-subscribed. These are more challenging, longer term campaigns, but still big issues for you communicate with residents.

A petition is a great way to engage residents and involve them in the campaign for better facilities in the area. For a major issue going to door to door with a petition sheet will maximise the number of signatures you get and local engagement with the issue. But even for smaller issues a special leaflet, or Focus story, identifying the problem and letting people know what you are doing about it, and then a follow up story to share the success you have, should be easy to produce for new estates missing simple facilities such as public bins, noticeboards, post boxes etc.

Here are some templates to help you with single-issue campaigns:

Management Companies and Leaseholds

One in five (over 5 million) homes in England and Wales are leaseholds, meaning the property owner does not own the ground underneath their building and instead lease it. This is common for privately owned flats, but it is common in many new build housing developments too.

Leaseholders for properties built before 2022 pay ‘ground rent’ – an annual fee for the ground below their building. In recent years ground rents have doubled for some residents, and can make it difficult for some to mortgage or sell a property. The Liberal Democrats have campaigned against the leasehold system for over a century. The government now plans to cap ground rents at £250 a year and to phase them out over the next 40 years. But it is still an issue that affects many new build owners.

It is common these days for the maintenance of communal spaces in a new build development to be undertaken by a management company – with their work funded by residents of the estate through a legal agreement in the deeds of the households.

Maintenance of green spaces, highways, drainages and shared spaces in flats can all be included in these agreements.

There can often be issues. The annual fee can increase, and the management of open spaces can often fall well below residents expectations. This might be a regular source of casework for you, and therefore it’s important to establish good relations with housing developers and management companies.

Similarly defects are also common newbuild homes. Research has shown that the average new build property has 157 defects – more than doubling since 2015!

We have a template residents survey dedicated to management fees, snagging issues with new homes and leasehold ground rents that you can find here:

  • Management and Leasehold Resident Survey (colour) – Affinity – PDF
  • Management and Leasehold Resident Survey (riso) – Affinity – PDF
  • New Flats Residents Survey (colour) – Affinity – PDF
  • New Flats Residents Survey (riso) – Affinity – PDF

Planning Applications

Planning applications for new developments can be very contentious. Particularly if the land proposed for housing is not allocated for that use in your Local Plan (the council document that includes your local planning policies, and land allocations). In these circumstances you may wish to object to the planning application and campaign against it locally.

If the land in question is allocated as a housing site in your local plan, then objecting to the development on principle is unlikely to generate a favourable outcome, and may mislead residents into thinking you can get the development stopped.

However you should scrutinise planning applications for new housing to ensure that they meet local plan standards, are of an appropriate scale and include conditions for community facilities that can benefit the whole community.

At the very, very least you should inform existing residents of the planning application once it is received by the council. A special leaflet, or Focus drop-in, can let them know the details of the development and how they can have their say. Even if you do not take a position yourself in the literature, empowering them to make a representation is good community representation.

Construction Sites

For residents in the area, construction sites can be the source of a lot of casework. There can be issues with noise, dust, mud on roads, vibrations and anti-social behaviour around sites.

Build good relationships with housing developers so you can quickly report issues like these. Addressing these issues makes good material for focus leaflets, street letters and social media posts.  

Top tips for campaigning in a New Build area

  • A system of regular New Voter Letter and enclosed surveys are essential
  • Follow this up with a canvassing session each time a few streets are well populated (check on CONNECT to see how new build streets are filling up).
  • Reach out to housing developers and management companies to establish contacts to progress casework
  • Lack of facilities may be a common issue – these can be easy campaign wins for minor issues (such as litter bins) and large campaigns for major issues (such as GP access). Either way local infrastructure and facilities will likely be a large part of your campaigning.
  • Always raise awareness of new housing applications with residents, be honest about the process but give people the opportunity to make representations.

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