Shropshire Council is urged to create five-year plan
Shropshire Council has been urged to get its five-year housing plan in place to stop planners using Government legislation to build homes in the county against local wishes.
Ludlow MP Philip Dunne said there was a risk of unplanned development applications increasing while the council waited for its Site Allocations and Management of Development plans, known as SAMDev, to be approved.
SAMDev will identify a supply of housing land for thousands of homes across the county up to 2026. But at the moment it is still going through the approval stages, and as a result the Government's National Planning Policy Framework is taking precedence, and developers are using it to their advantage.
Councillor Ian Pickles, Mayor of Broseley, raised the issue with Mr Dunne after several large developments were approved in the town.
He said town councillors had put a huge amount of work into drawing up a local plan for development in Broseley. But he added: "Shropshire Council has allowed through an application for housing on Coalport Road, which is dead against our plan.
"This is because Shropshire councillors were too afraid of central government, which is bullying local councils into submission. Our own MP is urging Shropshire Council to stand up to Government pressure on this. We can't understand why a Government, which promised us local power, is taking it away from us. This is not what the people in Broseley want."
Mr Dunne said: "The National Planning Policy Framework became effective from April 2013 and requires local authority plans to demonstrate a five-year supply of land for houses. Shropshire currently has 4.95 years of housing supply. The SAMDev process is aimed to identify a supply of housing land to 2026. There is currently a relatively short window in which the NPPF may take precedence over the emerging SAMDev from Shropshire Council.
"I have discussed this with the Planning Minister, Nick Boles MP. He confirmed once the SAMDev was in place it would provide a solid defence for Shropshire Council to reject applications for significant housing schemes that fell outside the SAMDev identified sites. I have suggested to Shropshire Council it resists applications outside the SAMDev areas on the basis that SAMDev clearly demonstrates the planning authority and local communities' intent."
