With the government knocking on the door to build 17,800 houses in Herefordshire over the next two decades, a campaign group has warned that county land should not be “cherry picked” to meet regional targets.
Monday marked the start of a major public examination into the next 20-year planning blueprint, where a government inspector will preside over an inquiry held at the Molineux ground of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, and listen to evidence from a wide variety of interested parties.
One of these will be the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), of which the West Midlands regional group vice chairman Peter Langley told the Journal: “Herefordshire has always had a lower proportion of land for development because there is not that much land available.
“But we are very concerned at the overall scale of house building proposed in the regional strategy, and that the government wants to increase that figure of 16,600 to 17,800.”
The Regional Spatial Strategy’s target should not be directed at greenfield sites at the expense of much needed urban regeneration, and rural developments should be regarded as highly uncertain in a recession, he said.
“There is clear evidence that cherry picking will happen, and because the number of properties envisaged will not be built we will end up with a strategy grossly distorted at the expense of the shire counties with urban areas remaining unscathed. That’s our worry,” he added.
“There is a clear choice for the region. We can concentrate on regenerating our main urban areas and build homes in rural areas to meet local needs – or we can allow large-scale building on rural sites to meet theoretical long-term housing projections. It is not possible to do both,” he said.
Meanwhile, county business leaders have backed Herefordshire Council’s bid to build an outer distributor road for Hereford, as well as supporting a second river crossing and bypass.
West Midlands local government leaders are also supporting the council’s £60-million bid for priority status for the new road, which could signal an end to the city’s current level of traffic congestion.
Council leaders say massive transport improvements are needed across Herefordshire if tens of thousands of new homes are to be built as part of the government-backed regional spatial strategy.
They take the view that up to 8,000 new houses could be built in Hereford as the housing market recovers, providing more funding to support the outer distributor road and a new river bridge.
The planning inquiry will run until the end of June before the inspector compiles a report for the government to make its final decision.
The Journal Says – Page 4