‘Being green’ at the heart of Telford & Wrekin local plan strategy – leading councillor

Councillor Carolyn Healy (Labour, Ironbridge Gorge) is the council’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods, planning and sustainability.

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She concentrated on how she sees the borough maintaining its position as one of the “most green and natural” placed in the country as well as the importance of having a plan.

She said the area has 20 local nature reserves with a further seven proposed, some 2,500 hectares of green network.

“Almost 90 per cent of households are within a five-minute walk of an accessible green space. “

But she said being green does not mean not meeting housing and employment needs.

It will have beefed up polices and the creation of new areas of publicly accessible open space and ecological biodiversity.

“This will continue the legacy established by Telford Development Corporation of a forest community set into the landscape,” she said.

Inspectors Mike Worden and Catherine Carpenter, later on during Tuesday’s opening day, pose questions about what the phrase ‘forest community’ means. Council officials said that would be expanded on.

Councillor Healy said that the housing being built in the borough would provide “climate ready homes” that will lower utilities bills and help “all of our residents. “

There is also a need for “regeneration” of former new town estates, and to bring stalled or undeveloped sites back into the loop.

“The plan contains policy that will allow the council to take positive action with these site owners,” she said.

The plan will also support local businesses and help secure inward investment to bring jobs and strengthen the economy.

And councillor Healy backed having a plan-making system to secure new strategic infrastructure.

Councillor Healy said the absence of an approved local plan would put the borough “at risk of speculative development, which in turn would make the delivery of infrastructure, such as new schools, improved transport systems and parks and open spaces harder for the council to deliver.”

She added that the council has an “excellent track record of securing infrastructure which has seen the redevelopment of local secondary and primary schools, the building of new primary schools and the expansion of existing secondaries, new and improved highway infrastructure and the building of medical facilities. “

She added that housing growth in new “sustainable communities” will lead to five new primary schools and a new secondary school.

“The sustainable communities sites will also help support improvements to the highway network.

“The council has already committed to delivering £12m of network improvements in north Telford which will have the added benefit of supporting our existing communities as well as the new ones.” she said

She added that the council and its partners have a “strong track record” of significant developments at Lawley, Lightmoor, Ketley and Priorslee. “

Councillor Healy concluded that the council “understands that having a plan in place is the best way to set a strategy for the future of our borough whilst protecting it against unwanted speculative development that, does not always serve the best interests of our residents, our businesses, or our environment.”