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20 July 2010 for immediate release

Shropshire Council has a historic opportunity on Wednesday to plan a better future for the county, but there is every sign it is set to ignore it.

Andy Boddington, Chairman of CPRE Shropshire says: “For the last two years, Shropshire Council has been telling us that the house building targets for the county can’t be challenged because they are set regionally and nationally. The national targets have now been abolished and regional planning has been swept away. The government is also telling councils to give communities the centre stage in deciding what housing is needed and where it should go. There is no evidence that Shropshire Council is even listening to what the government is saying.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the cabinet of Shropshire Council is being asked to approve the Core Strategy, the guiding plan for development in Shropshire over the next twenty years. Officers of the Council are proposing only one concession to the new government agenda: to amend the Core Strategy target of “around 27,500 new homes” to “UP TO 27,500 new homes IF REQUIRED”.

Andy Boddington continues: “Shropshire Council is bulldozing ahead with plans to build up to 27,500 homes in Shropshire by 2026, the target set by the previous government. There is a very real danger that it will unleash a housebuilding frenzy across the green fields of Shropshire. What communities everywhere in the county are saying is that they need affordable housing for local needs, not unwelcome sprawl designed to meet now extinct housing targets. It is time to give Shropshire’s communities the centre stage in the planning process but council planners seem reluctant to do this.”

“Incredibly Council officers are telling councillors that it is business as usual. Everyone else knows that the whole business of planning has changed and councils across the country are changing their plans. Will councillors on Wednesday have the courage and conviction to reject their officers’ recommendation to carry on regardless? If they do so, they will have grasped a historic opportunity to set Shropshire on the road to a flourishing future.”

On Wednesday, CPRE Shropshire will be asking the Cabinet to delay the current planning process to take account of the new government’s policies, the results of its recent consultation, and newly released reduced population estimates for Shropshire in 2026.

CPRE Question to Cabinet, July 21st 2010. Item 13 – Core Strategy

Will Cabinet recommend to Council that approval of the Core Strategy should be postponed for at least three months to allow for a revision of housing figures in policy CS1 in order to:

• 1. take account of the new planning context, including abolition of central housing targets and the Regional Spatial Strategy
• 2. review housing figures in the light of the new household projections from the Office of National Statistics.
• 3. consider community responses to the SAMdev consultation in accordance with the principle of localism prescribed by the new government.

CPRE Question to Cabinet, July 21st 2010. Explanatory Memorandum

Consultation

The communities of Shropshire have never been directly consulted on the level of housing numbers, neither were they consulted on Shrewsbury becoming a Growth Point. The Core Strategy Policy directions document in July 2009 told the communities that the level of housing had already been decided by the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy. The statement in Appendix D [1], page 3, that “the [housing] targets reflect local needs, demands and aspirations for growth and do not represent the imposition of unwelcome or undeliverable levels of development” is scarcely credible. The targets are, as Appendix D admits, “very much what the Shropshire local planning authorities wanted”. They represent planners’ aspirations for growth, not a measured response to the needs of Shropshire or the attitudes of local communities, which will emerge from responses to the SAMdev consultation.

Outdated data

The 27,500 new homes figure in the Core Strategy is based on out of date 2006-based household projections. The new 2008-based population projections were published on the Office of National Statistics website on 27 May, 2010 and will determine new household projections to be released in October or November. The new projections show a reduction in the 2026 Shropshire population from an estimated 329,600 people to 316,400. It is vital that Shropshire Council bases its plans on the most recent data.

Dangers of a high maximum

The Council must maintain a 5-year housing land supply in accordance with PPS3. If the housing figure is set too high, greenfield land will have been allocated unnecessarily and urban sprawl into the countryside will be the result. The section 4(4) consultation suggested a “Fourth Way” with an annual housing figure of 1120 from 2007 to 2026. It concluded that a higher figure “does not allow for constraints imposed by historic settlement patterns and important natural and built environmental assets particularly in Shrewsbury and could present significant infrastructure constraints on highway, transport, utilities, public and community infrastructure.” With 4386 empty homes in Shropshire, there is scope for meeting demand without new build.

Changing context

Shropshire Council is failing to take full account of change in the planning system. The Core Strategy has been prepared under a centrally directed planning regime. It is not in the long-term interests of Shropshire communities to push through the existing Core Strategy, a significant part of which fails to take full account of the government’s new planning policies. The Draft Structural Reform Plan published by the Department of Communities and Local Government states explicitly that Local Planning authorities should begin working in new ways on local plans in advance of the passing of the Localism Bill.

Housing numbers are fundamental and the Council has an opportunity, for the sake of a few months delay, to take account of the new planning context, the latest population projections and community responses to the SAMdev consultation, and so avoid the risk of unsoundness under the criteria specified in PPS12, paragraph 4.20.

We urge Cabinet to recommend this delay to Council.

[1] The reference is to the cabinet papers (http://is.gd/dsIfo).

Further Information

• Planning in Shropshire