CHANCELLOR George Osborne announced plans yesterday to use council workers’ pension funds to pay for major road, rail, airport, power station and homes projects.

And he will ride roughshod over objectors, saying “there are always going to be people who don’t like new building, don’t like new roads, don’t like new railways near them.”

The Chancellor announced plans to combine 89 English and Welsh local authority pensions funds into six regional British Wealth Funds for investment in infrastructure projects.

He will raise further billions by selling off public assets including land and buildings.

General union GMB, which represents hundreds of thousands of council workers, warned that the pension funds are not “politicians’ playthings.”

GMB national secretary Brian Strutton said: “Mr Osborne needs to remember these are council workers’ pension savings that need to be invested as efficiently as possible, they are not to be used as politicians’ playthings.”

The Chancellor has appointed Blairite former Labour minister Lord Adonis to chair a new “National Infrastructure Commission” to identify land to be developed — whatever the wishes of local people.

Mr Osborne said people whose homes were in the way of developments would be compensated — but “such issues must not be allowed to halt progress.”

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said Mr Osborne’s plans would lead to the demolition of council houses to make way for luxury homes for the rich.

“This is a Tory land-grab which is also advocated by Zac Goldsmith, the Tory candidate for mayor in London,” he said.