Local Plan decision ‘responsible thing to do’
The planning guide detailing which land is protected from developers across Newcastle Borough and which can be built on has been approved.
A meeting of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council’s Full Council approved adopting the Local Plan 2020-2040.
Required by Government, the Local Plan identifies areas for protection, business development and community facilities and also requires councils to have a rolling five-year supply of housing land.
Speaking after the meeting Deputy Leader Graham Shaw said:
This administration has made very clear that it does not agree with all parts of this Local Plan, that if it had been in our hands we would have done some things very differently.
However, the Planning Inspector issued her final report before this administration was formally appointed, and she has made it very clear that it cannot be amended.
Therefore, we have a choice: accept a Local Plan we did not draw up or reject it and leave communities across the Borough vulnerable to housing developers.
For without an approved and up-to-date Local Plan, developers would be able to submit planning applications for land anywhere, including greenfield and even Green Belt land, knowing that planning law makes a presumption in favour of the application.
Therefore, we feel that the lesser of two unsatisfactory choices is to accept the Local Plan and work rigorously with developers to ensure standards are upheld and influence final outcomes.”
The Local Plan 2020-2040 makes provision for 400 new homes per year. However, Government has already asked the Borough Council to begin work on a local plan for the period 2030-45, which would require 559 dwellings a year.
Leader Jonathan Gullis has replied to Government saying that he is not prepared to authorise spending up to £1 million of taxpayers’ money and thousands of hours of officers’ time on drafting another local plan when the Government is proposing to abolish the council.
Cllr Gullis said:
We will not accept the government making us take more than 2,000 additional homes whilst housing targets are slashed in places like London.
I will also not commit officers’ time nor taxpayers’ money on a plan that may never see the light of day. It’s a shambles and I will not have Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough be a part of it.”