BASINGSTOKE is not ‘exceptional’ when it comes to house building numbers according to a political figure from the town, who has picked apart the MP’s campaign to ‘slow down house building’.

Basingstoke MP Maria Miller launched a petition which has been signed by more than 4,000 people calling for house building in the borough to slow down.

However, Stacy Hart, the Women’s Equality Party borough council election candidate for Hatch Warren and Beggarwood, believes the focus should be on infrastructure, not building fewer houses.

READ MORE: Council urged to re-issue tax bills after percentage increase 'error' spotted

In a video, in which she pulls apart Dame Maria’s campaign, Stacy called for a “grown up conversation about it”.

She said: “There are campaign efforts from the local Conservatives to slow down house building on the basis that Basingstoke has built an exceptionally large number of houses recently.

"But while we would love to see local house-building numbers lowered, here are the reasons we don’t believe that campaign can work and more importantly the actions we believe would be far more effective in improving Basingstoke and the lives of its residents.”

She pointed out that Basingstoke’s circumstances are not ‘exceptional’ when it comes to house building and she believes the town needs more homes for its growing population.

The number of new homes for Basingstoke is set by the Government and to lower this Stacy said ‘exceptional circumstances’ need to be shown.

SEE ALSO: YOUR PICTURES - Hundreds head to Basingstoke Asda to watch Ant and Dec filming

“Exceptional circumstances don’t include anything as unspecific or generic as having built quite a lot of houses lately,” Stacy said, adding: “It’s possible to revise numbers upwards from the amount the Government says, but nearly impossible to revise them downwards.”

The case made by Dame Maria is that levels of house building over recent years have been exceptionally huge and that the infrastructure needs time to catch up.

However, Stacy said that the entire South East has seen over-developed, putting a strain on infrastructure.

“Basingstoke cannot argue that it is exceptional in terms of this section of the country which is vastly overcrowded because of political choices made that have concentrated economic development in the south east, and how population growth that we have experienced is largely normal and is a result of people’s better health and lifespan,” she said, adding: “Any exceptionalism has been in the exceptionally poor delivery of infrastructure and that is the thing we need to fix.”

She continued: “This has put a huge strain on the infrastructure in the South East. But it is simply not true that Basingstoke and Deane can make a case for exceptional circumstances on the base of over-building… In this section of the country, we’ve built the same as everywhere else.”

Stacy pointed out that if the local authority does not meet house building targets, it will lose control of planning resulting in appeals being won.

“Development by appeal is how you get bad development,” she said.

“Provide infrastructure and real investment in services first – that is the solution we should be pushing for,” Stacy added.

“This isn’t about housing numbers at all, it’s about infrastructure…Investment in schools, and hospitals and roads and public transport and social care and everything else that makes the country tick has not progressed at pace with the development we have seen.”

Stacy believes historically infrastructure in the town has been “massively underdelivered”.

“Does that mean the answer is to stop or slow down building houses for people that need them? Or does it really mean that we need people in power who will make the right amount of investment in the infrastructure services that we so badly need?” she asked.

Dame Maria declined to comment.