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7 June 2010. For immediate release.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England is calling on Shropshire Council to halt its county planning exercise until it can take into account the new government’s planning policies. [1]

Andy Boddington, Chairman of CPRE Shropshire says “In the short time the government has been in power, it has announced that it will abolish both regional plans and centrally imposed housing targets. As a result, all over the country, councils are halting or revising their planning proposals, including in Telford and Wrekin. However, Shropshire Council is continuing as though the previous government is still in control.”

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government wrote to all councils, including Shropshire Council on 27 May to confirm that regional plans would be quickly abolished, as would central and regional housing targets. The letter told Councils to act as though the plans, known as Regional Spatial Strategies, and the housing targets have already been abolished. [2]

Andy Boddington continues: “The Council must call an immediate halt to its Core Strategy process, which has been designed to implement the discredited regional plans and housing targets of the previous government. Those plans designated Shrewsbury as a Centre for Significant Development, a classification that will destroy the character of the town with sprawling urban growth. The regional housing targets dictated that 27,500 new houses must be built in the county. Shropshire Council is in danger of damaging some of the county’s treasured landscapes, villages and towns in an outdated pursuit of these abolished targets and plans. The planning world has changed. Shropshire Council must recognise this. It must stop the Core Strategy process immediately until the details of the new government’s plans are clear.” [3]

Notes

[1] Shropshire Council is currently finalising the Core Strategy, the centrepiece of the Local Development Framework, which aims to guide development in the county up to 2026. The Coalition government has promised radical reform of the planning system to give communities far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, and to return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils.
[2] The Eric Pickles letter: http://is.gd/czoaJ.
[3] Shropshire Council has recently consulted on the final version of the Core Strategy, which is shortly to be assessed by the government’s Planning Inspectorate. It is currently engaged in the Site Allocations and Management of Development (SAMDev), which is attempting to find sites for the 27,500 new houses around the county specified in the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy.