Object

Representation ID: 15936

Received: 08/10/2021

Respondent: Stuart Yardley

Black Country Plan (August 2021) - Pouk Hill open space, Bentley Lane, Reedswood, Walsall
I am writing to express my concerns in connection to the above. I have lived in the Reedswood area now for [Redacted-GDPR] and was horrified to learn that Walsall Council has included the Pouk Hill public open space within a proposed "core regeneration area" on page 499 (Figure 19: Walsall Spatial Strategy Plan) of the Black Country Plan (August 2021) public consultation document (Regulation 18 consultation). This will encourage highly damaging and unsustainable patters of development within the Reedswood area.
Walsall Council is promoting damaging patterns of development within the local area. The Pouk Hill public open space is important for the following reasons: -
- It provides an outdoor recreational resource for local residents
- It provides an important habitat for wildlife, including bat species
- It forms part of a wider connecting wildlife corridor from East to West across the Reedswood area
- It provides and essential urban green lung which helps to reduce harmful levels of air pollution from one of the busiest sections of Motorway highway networks in Europe.
- It has climate change benefits for surface water storage and promoting urban cooling.
- It enhances the local landscape quality, providing an essential green space
The fact that Walsall Council is actively promoting the development of the Pouk Hill public open space within the Black Country Plan (2021) underlines the failure and incompetence of Walsall Council in relation to urban green space planning matters.
Walsall has one of the worst obesity epidemics within the whole of the UK. With increasing cases of childhood and adult obesity. Yet Walsall Council still considers it a good idea to encourage the re-development of Reedswood's last few urban green space areas. This underlines the failure and incompetence of Walsall Council in relation to public health matters.
Walsall Council should be taking a more pro-active approach to tackling the local obesity epidemic. Its planning policies are doing the exact opposite, and making the situation alot worse.
Walsall Council should be stopped from damaging the local area any further.
The Pouk Hill green space provides an essential urban green lung that protects thousands of local residents from high levels of air pollution from Junction 10 of the M6 motorway. The mature woodlands within the Pouk Hill green space help to filter-out harmful levels of air pollution from the M6. By placing Pouk Hill open space within a proposed "Core regeneration Area" to encourage its disposal for new housing development, Walsall Council's proposed approach in the Black Country Plan is conflicting with Government planning guidance in paragraph 174 (indent e) of the Revised National Planning Policy Framework (2021).
Walsall Council's planning approach is also conflicting with Article 2 of the Human Rights Act Legislation which "protects your right to life" It states that "... Public authorities should also consider your right to life when making decisions that might put you in danger or that affect your life expectancy ..." By placing thousands of residents at increased risk and increased exposure to air pollution by redeveloping an important green lung, Walsall Council is contravening the Human Rights of thousands of Reedswood local residents on the eastern side of the Junction 10 M6 motorway. As local residents we have a clear, justified, and fundamental Legal right "to be able to breathe clean air". Walsall Council's planning policy approach within the Black Country Plan is a clear breach and infringement of our Human Rights under Article 2 of the Act. Walsall Council should be stopped from introducing further levels of environmental damage to the local area. The above issues highlight the failure and incompetence of Walsall Council on a range of public health and green space policy protection matters.
The re-development of the Pouk Hill green space area by including it within a "Core Regeneration Area" will also expose thousands of local residents within the Reedswood area to increased levels of noise pollution from the M6 motorway network near junction 10 of the M6. This will breach our Human Rights under Article 1 of the Human Rights Act Legislation, which provides a Legal Right ",,, to enjoy your property peacefully ..." Walsall Council's approach at encouraging the redevelopment of an important woodland urban green lung is therefore breaching Article 1 of the Human Rights Act.
Walsall Council has also failed to take on board the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. These local green spaces have played a critical key role in helping provide a key green space recreational resource during the lock-down restrictions. By actively promoting their redevelopment Walsall Council is promoting inappropriate, damaging and unsustainable patterns of development within the local area, contrary to guidance in paragraphs 11, 92, 98 and 179 of the Revised National Planning Policy Framework (July 2021).
To stop Walsall Council from delivering considerable landscape-scale ecological habitat damage to the local area, and from damaging key urban green space lungs (critical for air quality enhancement) and outdoor green space recreational resources the Pouk Hill public open space site should therefore be: -
- Removed from the "Core Regeneration Area" designation on page 499 (Figure 19)
- Should be specifically designated as an "urban green lung / air quality enhancement area" on the main Policies MAp of the Black Country Plan (2021).
- designated as a "Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC)" on the main Policies Map of the Black Country Plan
- protected by a blanket tree preservation order
- designated as a "key wildlife corridor"