'Don't let Sadiq Khan take our green spaces - and don't let Reform help him to do it'

We’ve been very fortunate over the Easter weekend to finally get some good weather, after what feels like an endless winter. Londoners could use the bank holidays to step out into the sun and take advantage of the countless beautiful open spaces in our city that are dotted across our 32 boroughs. But I fear that these green spaces are under attack - from Sadiq Khan, but aided and abetted by Reform.

It seems an unlikely alliance, doesn’t it? For all their criticism of the Mayor, and all their opposition to him in public, they’re all too happy to go along with Sadiq’s plans to build on our greenbelt. Last Summer, when we first heard of the Mayor’s plans to push to build on green spaces, my Conservative colleagues and I laid a motion calling on the Mayor to drop these plans.

Reform not only spoke in favour of the Mayor’s plans but actually voted against us, enabling the motion to be defeated. When the Deputy Mayor for Housing comes to the Assembly, Reform are the first to ask about building on the greenbelt and how much we need to do it.

As we approach the May local elections, many voters will be considering how they will vote this time round. I fear that if Reform gains control of boroughs, this anti-green spaces agenda will get a credible footing in council offices across London. Parts of London dotted with vibrant parks, natural waterways, and rich green foliage, could find themselves vanishing under skyscrapers as Reform councils sweep away the green spaces Londoners love so much.

The worst thing is that they don’t even need to do it. London contains a lot of brownfield land, ex-industrial land, which is undeveloped. If houses need to be built, they need to be the right type of housing - mixed or low density, with good infrastructure and without ridiculous anti-car measures - but also on the right type of land.

And whilst there is a single acre of brownfield land in London that remains undeveloped, for Reform and Labour to push to build on parks and metropolitan open land is a clear sign that it’s not about solving the housing crisis for them.

So many Londoners do not have gardens of their own. Many will have enjoyed parks across our city this last glorious weekend, sitting in the sun and stretching their legs after good lunches. But this leisure is under threat from an unholy alliance of Reform and Labour to concrete over our parks.

That is why I am fighting so hard to get Labour out of office and to keep Reform out - because I believe our green spaces are worth protecting, and I believe that Londoners have a right to access them without these parks disappearing under bulldozers.

Don’t fall for the performance and the spin when Reform makes a song and dance about how they think Sadiq Khan is an awful Mayor. He is, and we know he is. But Reform is all too keen to work with the Mayor to take away your green spaces, whilst pretending they could never work with him.

It’s not honest to voters, and it risks costing London our parks and other green spaces - which once they are gone, they’ll not be coming back. Don’t let Sadiq Khan take these spaces from us, and don’t let Reform help him to do just that.