Villagers fight against urban sprawl threat

BATTLE lines are being drawn in rural Worcestershire over the threat to villages from house-building plans. Residents and parish councillors between Worcester and Droitwich are opposing a series of major housing applications – which are submitted or pending – over concerns about increasing traffic, how developers have selected the sites and whether there is any evidence they are needed. Their campaigns have now secured the backing of Mid- Worcestershire MP Peter Luff, who is telling local communities to fight the developments they don’t like. He is warning of creeping urban sprawl between the city and Droitwich if new proposals for building at Copcut, Yew Tree Hill, and around Fernhill Heath go ahead. He says developers are using a window of opportunity and playing a game of roulette by submitting speculative plans for these and other developments on the city’s outskirts, including Bevere and off the Ketch island on the A4440. Although he accepts more houses are needed and particularly affordable homes, he said we simply did not need all the developments planned for the areas around Worcester. He said: “The two biggest problems are the over-development of the Droitwich area and the coming together of Worcester, Fernhill Heath and Droitwich in a massive urban sprawl.” Developers are putting in speculative proposals in the Wychavon district and banking that a government planning inspector will allow them on appeal, even if councils knock them back. Wychavon District Council is exposed because of changes to Labour government housing targets combined with the fact it cannot show that it has enough houses being built within its boundaries over the next five years. It cannot prove how many homes are now needed until a new document called the South Worcestershire Development Plan is completed in the autumn. This will replace the old Labour targets. It means planners must at least consider old housing targets which Mr Luff said would have seen all the current proposed developments given planning permission. He said: “It is difficult for [council] planners. Under the old system, they’d have had to say yes to all these developments but we’re expecting the new development plan to reduce the housing targets by 20 per cent. “So developers are playing a game of roulette at the moment on the hope a planning inspector will allow these plans on appeal.” When the coalition Government took power last year, it suspended unpopular housing targets. Ministers suspended the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) – which included Labour government housing targets to build 24,500 homes for Worcestershire. But despite the Government’s action, it left the door open to what Peter Luff has recently called speculative developments. Worcester, Wychavon and Malvern Hills councils have worked together to come up with a strategy on how many homes and how much planning land to release in the south of the county. But when the RSS was suspended, their evidence for thousands of new homes in south Worcestershire still stands until it is replaced by new evidence (the South Worcestershire Development Plan). Developers believe they can still rely on this old evidence to justify large-scale house building plans. Since the suspension, there have been successful appeals in favour of developments at both Badsey and Bredon, in Wychavon. Barbara Meddings, Hindlip, Martin Hussingtree and Salwarpe parish council chairman, said: “I think the impact on all the surrounding communities will be very bad.” Adrian Darby, who sits on a key county-wide planning committee, said every district in south Worcestershire was “in limbo” because of the housing target changes – but Wychavon was at greater risk. The council is facing a 740-home application off Copcut Lane, with another 800 homes in the pipeline at Yew Tree Hill off Pulley Lane and plans for homes between Tagwell Road and the M5 near the Primsland area. It is awaiting the first of several applications for thousands of homes around Fernhill Heath related to the new sports village and around Bevere, it is also fielding separate applications by CALA homes and Bellway Homes for 365 houses.