Planning review 'is helping hillfort fight'
Campaigners say new doubts hang over Shropshire Council's handling of proposed housing near a 3,000-year-old hillfort as the current planning system comes under review.
Members of the Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort campaign group are planning to challenge the decision to include the housing development in the council's SAMDev allocation, which lists sites approved for development over the next decade.
And members say the fact that Shropshire Council has begun a review of the way its planning department makes decisions calls into question the integrity of decision-making in other areas, most significantly SAMDev.
Dr George Nash, an archaeology professor from Wem, said: "We are not surprised that Shropshire planners find themselves at the centre of these accusations of undemocratic conduct and calls for restraint.
"Based on recent media reports, it is clear that councillors at all levels and across the political spectrum are extremely disappointed in the way Shropshire Council's planning department exercise their decision-making.
"This now gives us additional teeth to challenge what we believe has been a calculated bias towards keeping OSW004 in SAMDev. We believe that the original heritage assessment that carried the site through several stages of the process must be the subject of a formal independent review. Oswestry Town Council asked for this over a year ago and was completely disregarded."
Members of Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort have said they were disappointed the inspector did not agree with the public opposition to the development, which included a petition with almost 6,000 signatures and objections by 12 leading British archaeologists.
Neil Phillips, from the group, said: "The use of the National Planning Policy Framework to sanction development over the preservation of such significant heritage landscape was surely not the government's intention. However, the 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' is propping up greedy bids to build high profit housing with postcard views of hillforts, meres and parkland.
"Whitehall needs to intervene now before the Best of Britain disappears under brick and concrete in the present rush to build houses."
However, housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis has insisted that protection for the countryside is being maintained.