Lib Dems Oppose Gordon's Greenfield Grab

11.04.24pm GMT Mon 1st Oct 2007

West Midlands Liberal Democrats are striking the first blow of the General Election Campaign by opposing "Gordon's greenfield grab" in the failing Regional Spatial Strategy according to the Lib Dems

Liberal Democrats have marked the Regional Spatial Strategy as Fail, Fail, Fail and Fail. Fail on sustainability, Fail on housing allocation, Fail on transport and Fail on analysis.

John Hemming MP, the Shadow Minister for the West Midlands has written to the Regional Assembly and Liam Byrne to raise the party's concerns about the Regional Spatial Strategy.

"Most importantly", he said, "the RSS fails on sustainability. It plans on building 362,600 new properties. This will involve a 3.1% increase in CO2 emissions according to URSUS (the RA's sustainability consultants). Increased Nitrous Oxide Air Polution would damage Cannock Chase, Green Belt development would occur in Coventry, Tamworth, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Redditch. It is clear that there would be water shortages created in a number of areas. Surface water run off will cause damage to habitats in 5 sites. Water supply reduction will cause damage to habitats in 8 sites including the Humber and Severn Estuaries which will alos be affected by Sewage probelsm as well as two other sites."

"The additional 8,600 hectares needed for housing will include 3,000 that is greenfield or employment land. However, more land will be taken for commerical and retail purposes and some 883,731 tonnes of municipal waste and 2,613,000 tonnes of industrial and commercial waste per year will be landfilled even in 2025/6. The RA have not even identified where this waste will go as yet or done any analysis on how much land will be needed."

"This is a typical example of predict and provide. What will be needed is the retrofitting of current properties to reduce water consumption and energy usage as well as adopting the "building for life" standard. CABE have estimated that around half of current developments are built to an inadequate standard. A much higher building intensity will be needed."

"The RSS still means encouraging development outside the Major Urban Areas notwithstanding their policy of stopping this. Some 12 properties will be built outside the MUAs for every 10 inside. The whole strategy needs to be rephased so concentrate first on the MUAs."

"Errors are being made in Burton, Stafford and Worcester which are supposed to see major development, but they have major rivers going through the area. This means that transport links will be a mess with the town divided by a mile and a half of waterway or we will simply exacerbate the flood problem."

"The new policies should be phased in more quickly to take full effect by 2011, not 2016. Thresholds will allow far too many developments to escape and should be lowered or removed. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems must become compulsory in light of recent floods. "

"This gives a fail mark on Sustainability."

"The second area of failure is on housing allocations. Gordon Brown has proposed that a net 2 million new houses are built by 2016 and 3 million by 2020. It is clear that the WMRS will not achieve this. This is an area of policy chaos. It is estimated that 19,000 new houses are needed each year (net) in the West Midlands. However, the plan is to build just over 18,000 a year. On the other hand if we were to have 200,000 built in the West Midlands by 2016 we would need 20,000 a year and another 25,000 a year until 2020. This means a shortfall of 20,000 according to Gordon Brown by 2016 and 48,000 shortfall by 2020. That is a substantial shortfall."

"The plan is supposed to concentrate on new dwellings in the Major Urban Areas, but instead is concentrating on taking up green fields. It is clear that Gordon Brown's underlying plan involves more housing in green fields and the green belt. We do need to provide more housing, but this should be done without the loss of unreplaceable environmental assets. This makes the ill thought out national government planning even more threatening."

"Currently average house prices are around seven times average income in the region. For there to be an impact on this figure there would need to be a doubling of the rate of building, but in fact we are only looking at a 25% increase. We also need to recognise that very many people cannot afford the dwellings described as affordable and the options for council's to build housing for rent should not be ignored."

"This gives a fail mark on meeting housing allocations."

"The third area of failure is on transport. Transport policies look good for most of the Region, but the north east sub region (Lichfield, Tamworth, Nth Warwicks, Nuneaton and Bedworth) needs a Strategic Park and Ride. We were dismayed to see continued reference to a second runway at BIA, but are pleased that this may well be removed in a task group review later this week. We are pleased to here that BIA are due to bring forward proposals to improve access to the airport by public transport."

"There is a need for higher densities so that we can make effective use of transport other than the car (including Shanks' Pony)."

"This gives a fail mark on transport".

"The fourth area of failure is on analysing land usage. There will be a substantial amount of agricultural land taken up at a time when we should be trying to expand the production of biofuels and there is demand for domestic food production. The report, however, does not properly analyse land usage. For a regional spatial strategy to not have regional land use statistics gives not just a fail mark, but unclassified."

"Developing a regional spatial strategy is a difficult job in balancing out different demands, but the West Midlands' RSS clearly fails on four key areas.".

"This implies that the government really do not understand what they are doing as without good foundations their proposals cannot be achieved."