Shropshire’s plans for development for the next 15 years could be thrown in disarray by a critical letter from the two planning inspectors examining the new local plan. The inspectors’ letter on the local plan is a bombshell. The council has sat on the letter for a month and is told to reply by the end of January, though it can plead for longer. Regardless, the council has to fix the broken plan within six months or it will be found unsound and rejected by the planning inspectorate.
Most local plans have to be modified during examination by the planning inspectorate. For Shropshire’s local plan, those modifications have been extensive and have led to long delays in the approval of the plan. It hasn’t put enough resources into the plan. We are in danger of free-for-all housebuilding across the county.
Heather Kidd, co-leader of the Lib Dem group on Shropshire Council and Shropshire Councillor for Chirbury and Worthen, said:
“This is major blow to the council. All its long term plans for economic and housing development across Shropshire will be in disarray until the new local plan is in place.
“The previous plan is now hopelessly out of date and open to challenge by developers who want to build on the most profitable sites, usually green fields, not where communities most need houses and employment.
“The local plan has long been in the periphery of Shropshire Council’s vision. The planning policy team has not had the resources other planning teams have had. The result is the local plan has faced lengthy delays as it has struggled to get approval from the planning inspectorate.
“There are now only one third of planning officers working on the local plan than there were when the council’s original plan was developed more than ten years ago. Despite pressure from the Liberal Democrats, the council has not rectified this. Neither has the council acknowledged that late delivery means the plan must be extended by three years to 2041. The inspectors say that means finding sites for three years extra housing.
“The council leadership needs to get a grip on the problem. It needs to appoint a deputy portfolio holder to cabinet whose sole responsibility will be getting the local plan delivered. It must also ensure there are enough planners working on the local plan.”
Andy Boddington, Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow North and a member of the Southern Planning Committee said:
“It is a legal requirement that planning authorities maintain a five-year of housing land. My understanding is that Shropshire Council now has less than five years’ land in the bank. That could prove disastrous for our county. The council couldn’t demonstrate a five-year land supply before 2014. The result of that was unsustainable housing being built in the wrong places. If the council rejected applications back then, planning inspectors routinely approved them because a lack of land supply.
“The council’s agreement to provide 1,500 homes and 30 hectares of employment land for councils in the Black Country is one of the biggest problems picked up the inspectors. The four black country councils have struggled to deliver enough housing, mostly because of the difficulty in getting brownfield sites developed. I am surprised there are not enough brownfield sites in Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton to meet their targets. The councils need to work harder on housing delivery and not expect Shropshire to solve their housing problems.
“In February 2023, the planning inspectors told Shropshire Council the extra housing and employment land for the Black Country must be added to its planned allocation of 31,300 homes. Instead, Shropshire Council decided to fit the Black County allocation within sites reserved to meet its housing target. The inspectors have now said that this fudge is not acceptable. They want Shropshire to increase its housing target and find enough sites to meet the needs of the Black Country.
“There is worse to come. The government’s new housing targets are not yet in force for Shropshire but those would increase our housing target by a quarter.
“I don’t see how this many houses can be built. There are not enough skilled tradespeople to do the work. Developers are not asking for this many houses because they know they won’t be able to sell them quickly. But they do want to pick and choose the sites they develop and not build them where most needed.
“The local plan is at the tipping point of failure. Shropshire Council needs to take urgent action to rescue it.”
Shropshire Council said after the inspectors’ letter:
“We are in a similar situation to many other councils and will be considering the Inspectors’ views very carefully in the coming weeks and assessing a range of options as to how best to proceed, while taking account also of the implications of recent Government announcements on planning reforms. A report on this will come to Cabinet in February.”
Notes
To be sound a plan needs to meet objectively assessed needs for new homes, employment land and infrastructure for at least the next decade. It has to prove it has the best strategy to meet those needs. It has to be deliverable, not just a pipedream. It must show that it has considered the needs of adjacent local authorities. And it must be compliant with national planning policies.
The four Black Country councils have delivered 2,346 dwellings a year since 2021. The new government targets for housebuilding state Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton should be building a total of 5,042 dwellings a year.
What have Black Country council’s house building got to do with Shropshire?
Councils have a duty to consider housing needs neighbouring authorities cannot meet. The Black Country says it can’t meet its current targets. Hence, we get the housing.
I am very sceptical that the councils can’t find space for enough housing. I have only looked at Sandwell and the data is mess and hard to interpret. However, I sure that there is enough brownfield. The problem is developers wants greenfield rather than the more expensive to develop former industrial sites.
Shropshire Council should never have agreed to take the housing and battled it out with the planning inspectors. But that would have required more staff and no one in the council leadership seems to care about planning. Except to approve as many housing applications as possible and collect the council tax.
I agree with almost everything said here, except the continuous reference to the council’s failures. The fact is that this problem is entirely the Conservative Administration’s fault and this needs to be emphasised. There are lots of good, sensible councillors on Shropshire Council including yourself Andy and the rest of the Lib Dems as well as some independents and a notable few in other parties. However the Conservative are a mess, incompetent beyond belief and have failed to get the officers they appoint and allegedly control to do what was needed.
The sooner they are gone, the better.
However it will leave a total disaster to be managed by those who replace them and many unpleasant decisions will be forced on you simply to start to put things right.
You have my best wishes in all your endeavours.