Row as Telford and Wrekin local plan clears latest hurdle

A council’s Labour leadership stood unanimously behind Telford and Wrekin’s new local plan in the face of opposition from local leaders of the Conservatives and Lib Dems.

The local plan sets out the development blueprint for the borough up to 2041 including providing 20,680 homes, space for 17,000 jobs, and ‘enhancing’ biodiversity.

The cabinet was called on to support adopting the plan in the last but one stage before it can come into full force. The final clash is set to take place at a meeting of the full council later this month (November).

Council leader Lee Carter locked horns with Conservative group chief Andrew Eade over what the Tory boss referred to as local Labour not having “the guts to stand up to your political masters in Westminster.

“This is your plan, your disaster and put simply it is your mess,” said Councillor Eade at a meeting of the cabinet on Thursday (Nov 12).

But Councillor Carter hit back, accusing his opposite number of presenting a “fantasy world”.

Councillor Carter (Arleston and College) said: “It’s easy for people to oppose but leadership is quite difficult.

“To continually go around and pretend this is a straight argument between no development versus development is total nonsense and exposes this council to great legal risk to be overridden by the government who will impose a plan on us, or even worse developers running wild across this borough.”

Councillor Eade (Lilleshall and Church Aston) also clashed with the council deputy leader.

He said: “Do not try and tell me that concreting and Tarmacking over acres of good or very good agricultural land and its surrounding countryside is protecting our wildlife, food security, enhancing our green spaces or even achieving your net zero targets.”

Deputy council leader Carolyn Healy, a director of a company providing landscape, ecology and arboriculture consultancy, spoke of her professional and personal passion for ensuring that the plan would increase biodiversity by double a national target of 10 per cent.

Councillor Healy (Ironbridge Gorge) said land at Bratton, Muxton and Wheat Leasow “might look green but that does not mean it is ecologically diverse. A monoculture is not ecologically diverse.

She said she feels “passionately” about setting a target to increase biodiversity by 20 per cent.

“You want to give the impression that we are literally concreting over the entire amount of those sites,” she said.

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“That is not the case. Large parts of those areas will be green, with more trees, wetlands and meadows and will be publicly accessible.”

Planning inspectors agreed that some 11,300 homes out of the 20,680 requirement from 2021 to 2041 have already been either given planning permission or been built, leaving 10,231 homes to fulfil plan targets.

Liberal Democrat leader Bill Tomlinson (Shawbirch & Dothill) fears traffic gridlock on local roads, including Shawbirch roundabout.

He said that infrastructure plans don’t “give residents enough confidence that you have thought it through adequately to say exactly what the improvements are going to be.”

He agrees that the council needs a local plan and that it is a legal requirement.

“If you don’t have a sound plan developers can almost build at will,” he said.

But he said 8,000 homes would come in “areas where the highways are already under stress” and that is “a real worry for many, many residents

“I am not happy with the local plan because I do not believe the infrastructure can be developed in a timely fashion.”

Councillor Tomlinson said after the meeting that his group will be opposing the adoption of the local plan at full council over traffic concerns.

Councillor Healy said that the plan covers the “next 15 years-plus” and this gives time to deal with infrastructure.

She said: “It’s not all going to suddenly appear tomorrow or the day after full council.”

Councillor Tomlinson had also repeated a residents’ beliefs that development is happening in areas ‘without Labour councillors’.

But councillor Healy said this is not the case as there are sites across south and central Telford which have also been for development identified.

But she added that the council did not want to build on local nature reserves and green spaces.

She added that some potential development sites had been taken out of the local plan to protect rural areas.

The cabinet voted unanimously to recommend the local plan to full council.

All 54 councillors will get the chance to vote on adopting the local plan at a meeting of the full council on November 26, 2026.

Labour has 37 councillors while all the others add up to 17 with the Conservatives on eight seats, the Liberal Democrats holding six and there are three independents.