11,000 homes to go up in Shropshire by 2019

Shropshire Council has been told it must put up 10,339 new properties by 2019 to meet strict Government housebuilding targets.

But local authority chiefs have unveiled plans to build 11,318 homes within the five year target.

The council has been told it must build 27,500 homes in the county by 2026.

The five-year housing land supply statement reveals 8,121 homes have gone up since 2006 - a shortfall of nearly 2,000 on what the council had planned.

That shortage has been factored into the new target, the report says.

Of the 11,000, nearly half - 5,286 - will be made up of homes that have already won planning permission and are mainly single home or very small developments dotted all over the county.

Just over 2,500 homes will be delivered through the council's controversial Site Allocations and Management of Development (SAMDev) blueprint, which has identified sites best suited for housing developments.

However, SAMDev has come under fire from residents in towns and villages who say it includes "unsuitable" locations.

Included in SAMDev are plans for more than 700 homes in Shrewsbury, including a huge 550-home development on land east of London Road, and a 175-home estate off Longden Road and Mousecroft Lane.

It outlines plans to also build around 500 homes each in both Bridgnorth and Oswestry.

In Bridgnorth the biggest proposed development is of 400 homes on land next to Racecourse Farm, with plans to put up another 100 properties at the town's livestock market.

In Oswestry, there are two 100-plus home sites mooted - one on the Richard Burbidge site in Whittington Road and another nearby on land off Whittington Road.

There are plans to build more than 400 in Market Drayton, nearly 350 in Shifnal and almost 300 in Ludlow.

The land supply statement has been criticised by Ludlow's Shropshire councillor Andy Boddington, who sits on the authority's south planning committee.

He said homes would be going up on sites where there had been strong opposition from people living nearby because Shropshire Council did not have enough planning officers to identify more suitable land.

He said: "In the past two years, we have seen a mad scramble to approve housing.

"Too often this has been in complete disregard of what local communities think.

"Councillors have blamed government planning rules, but it not the rules that are the problem.

"It's the failure of Shropshire Council to find enough land for the housing we so urgently need.

"Today's statement does not move us on very far.

"It is over-reliant on a huge number of small sites delivering just one or two houses each.

"It will be challenged by developers who want to build huge estates around market towns like Ludlow.

"We should not be in this position. Planning is profitable. Shropshire Council makes a £1 million profit on planning fees every year.

"The government has given the council nearly £15 million as a reward for building new houses in the last few years.

"Despite this flood of money, Shropshire Council has cut back on planning officers. There simply aren't the staff to work on securing enough land supply.

"Until Shropshire Council is prepared to invest in its planning team, we will get housing estates imposed on villages and towns that do not want them.

"It's not government planning rules that are at fault, it's the cheapskate approach to planning taken by council leaders in Shropshire."