Object

Representation ID: 14482

Received: 11/10/2021

Respondent: John Rowley

The draft BCP is not robust enough to protect the city’s natural environment from development.

CSP 2, on page 26, seeks to deliver growth and development by …..e) ‘Protecting the openness, integrity and function of the Black Country’s designated and retained Green Belt by resisting inappropriate development;’
This aim has been lifted word for word from the BCCS. It appears in similar form in Wolverhampton’s UDP, yet outline planning permission for an inappropriate development of 14 houses was nevertheless allowed on the former Wolverhampton Environment Centre (the WEC) in March 2018. [Table 43 ]
The definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ in paragraph 3.14 of the Justification needs to be strengthened. It is difficult to see how building expensive houses on Green Belt land can be justified by the need to raise cash, as happened with the WEC, especially when there are brownfield sites and sites with previous planning permission waiting to be developed in Wolverhampton.
2. Paragraph 3.15 accepts that green spaces should be assessed…with regard to the wider area but I could find no consideration in the BCP of the impact South Staffs Spatial Housing Strategy will have on Wolverhampton’s Green Belt - context CSP , paragraph 3.49. We may be ‘surrounded’ by open countryside on north, west and south at the moment but not for ever.