Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood yesterday asked the Government to make a statement on plans to build 21,000 homes on Green Belt around Bournemouth.

Government Minister, Yvette Cooper MP, responded on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister, that currently the Government has no such plans.

"There are no Government plans to build 21,000 more homes on Green Belt around Bournemouth. The South West Regional Assembly is working to prepare the new Regional Spatial Strategy which will look at housing need."

Tobias Ellwood says:

"It is clear that the Government is happy to rely on the remote and unelected Regional Assembly to make its development plans. I shall be keeping a close watch on the South West Regional Assembly as it prepares to make a new Regional Spatial Strategy. I shall be attending the forth coming Full Regional Assembly meeting in Exeter in July and shall express the deep feeling in Bournemouth that our green belt is sacrosanct, not open to development. Any requirement for additional housing should be made by our Borough Council and not imposed on us by an unaccountable, undemocratic and unnecessary organisation, quite remote from Dorset."