Object

Representation ID: 23231

Received: 11/10/2021

Respondent: Member of Parliament

In recent years, we have seen the steps taken and significant investment to successfully assist with the remediation of brownfield sites for housing. The United Kingdom is on the verge of playing global host to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26), yet it is unclear what full and proper assessment has been undertaken of all available brownfield sites in my constituency ahead of proposing large swathes of development on existing Green Belt sites.
It is extremely disappointing that the Black Country Plan fails to live up to its brownfield first policy aspiration, nor even recognises the value and multiple benefits that such a policy and protections would create.
By failing to live up to that policy the Green Belt will undoubtedly be sacrificed first, our communities and environment damaged and the opportunity to regenerate urban and brownfield sites lost for a generation, if not forever.
Turning again to the figures on which this Plan is based and even on the basis of the flawed starting point of 13,344 units required over 20 years, this equates to 667 units per year.
Adopting an urban and brownfield sites first policy would provide 12 years of homes without having to touch any of the Green Belt sites.
If the trajectory of population growth continues to fall and migration flows reduce, the preservation of our Green Belt would endure for longer, if not indefinitely, whilst housing need can be met on brownfield sites, and our towns and district centres are regenerated and reinvigorated to be able to meet the challenge of the post Covid-19 era and provide the needed homes.
Without such a commitment to uphold the development of brownfield sites first, developers will simply continue to choose Green Belt sites over brownfield sites seeing them as the easier and cheaper model for development.
The stated aims of the Green Belt and the protections that it is given are well documented. There should be no de-designation of existing Green Belt.
As identified in the National Planning Policy Framework, the Green Belt serves 5 key purposes. Key amongst those objectives is to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas.
On all of the key sites identified on Green Belt land in my Aldridge-Brownhills constituency, these principles are being set to one side to meet questionable targets and quotas that for the reasons I have identified above have not been justified in the Plan.