Forums Forums Local News More threats to Wirral's Green Belt

Sorry but you really need to read the SHMA to understand where the demand comes from, I can assure you its not the Government.

The Council have to produce a local plan based on the evidence they put forward.

IN WBC case this was produced by NLP consultants not the ONS.

If it was just ONS and government led why would every council have to produce a local plan?

Why do you think Wirral's figures coincide exactly with the Government calculation using ONS data? Is this a remarkable coincidence or that they are using the same data and the same calculation? Whether its the Council or NLP writing the figures the source data is ONS and the calculation method is the Government's.

The reason that each Council has to write this garbage (as well as thousands of other pieces of garbage) is the same old thing this Government do best, the Government keeps control but passes the blame elsewhere. In theory the Council can come up with different figures to the Government but they have to justify the difference, if the Government doesn't like the different figures they overrule the Council by sending in their own consultants/auditors etc or just punish the Council, especially if its not Conservative.

It doesn't pay a Council to disagree with the Government, the Government have replaced budgets with arbitrary grants which can dry up very quickly.

Could you provide a link to the figures you mention, it would be good to see them to compare ONS data and WBC data. I cant find Wirral stats specifically on ONS website.

NLP do use ONS Data yes agreed, but you have to look at what they are doing with it in their own model and scenarios they agreed with WBC.

A small extract from NLP below

NLP’s HEaDROOM framework was used to identify locally generated housing
needs based upon an analysis of the demographic, economic, and policy /
supply factors within Wirral. Based on past trends and context of the Borough,
a number of scenarios were identified and agreed with Council Officers
reflecting alternatives for potential future growth within Wirral.

The scenarios agreed with WBC are where the number really start to get inflated.

Irrespective of where , who what or when, does anyone actually believe the Wirral is capable of 800dpa ? Thats a lot of houses and extra people for a Peninsula with rising unemployment, aging population and no major Employers like there once was .

What are all these people going to do for work?

how Will Arrowe Park cope?

im not sure what the schools or doctors surgeries are like in your part of the Wirral, but from the limited part i can see where full! there is no more room, unless a massive infrastructure programme is completed before all these extra houses are built.

The calculation is explained in John Brace's blog to which I previously posted a link HERE

That gives the relevant ONS links in the explanation which gives household projections for every five years.

This chap appears to have done a thorough analysis and has captured the fundamental flaws

Its worth a read

https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/green-belt-do-you-want-facts-and-figures-or-fake-news/

Yes, doing exactly what this Government wants, blaming it all on the Council. The Council is forced to produce those documents and know it doesn't look good for them, no doubt in retaliation they have played devils advocate a bit to try and rescue their reputation.

I haven't checked but has the Council said it needs to allocate all that Greenbelt land or is it a list of potential areas for inclusion in the allocation list?

The idea that building expensive luxury houses in greenbelt land gets higher rates is totally flawed, the Council makes more "profit" from high density areas than more sparsely populated areas.

Whatever, the source of the problem is the ONS data that species our projected housing growth, here are some actual figures of housing for Wirral (from ONS), unfortunately its rounded to nearest thousand. Finding tables of historical number homes for Wirral is proving elusive.

2009 107,000
2010 107,000
2011 105,000
2012 105,000
2013 103,000
2014 103,000
2015 101,000
2016 102,000
2017 102,000

But this doesn't necessarily correlate with number of households, I found a figure 0f 154,411 for 2016 for number of households.

Where you say high density housing is more profitable for the Council DD , I wonder if that is still correct in 'poorer' high density areas where there is a rebate for people on low incomes. Most people on Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance Income Based, Employment Support Allowance Income Related or Pension Credit Guarantee will qualify for full Council Tax benefit and would not pay,and half of the ones that ARE supposed to pay just dont, and get away with it .

Is it perhaps more profitable in other ways , like maybe more money for the actual land itself if its allowing more properties on it - or anything like that?

Very astute Venice! The Government grant to councils used to cover some of the exemptions/discounts of Council tax, I'm not quite sure where they lie now as the Government are reducing the grant to a target of zero in exchange for Council's keeping all of business rates (which is obviously a doomed plan as it is self-degenerating, if a council is in financial trouble one year it is not in a position to be able to recover).

An example that relates to one aspect of my statement - a largish property say Band E would be charged £2198.88 If this property is divided into four flats, even if they are rated Band A, that property gets £4,623.28 Council tax. Even taking this to the extreme, if the Property was the top Band H it would still get less than dividing it into four flats at Band A (noting this would be a highly unlikely scenario, the flats would be unlikely to be Band A). There can be some reverse examples but overall the statement holds.

The road sweeping, bin collection, street light maintenance, grass cutting etc is proportionally more expensive to the Council for a luxury house in the suburbs when measured by property numbers or population size. Not forgetting that many other non-council services (although not directly relevant to this discussion) are also subsidised in suburbia eg gas, electricity, telephone, post, fire service, water, sewage, ambulance etc.

check out the latest here

https://www.wirral.gov.uk/planning-...y/local-plans/core-strategy-local-plan-7

Hopefully someone at WBC has read there own litrature and will see sense!

I found the following particullay interesting given all the talk abouthe naughty government imposing ONS data in the SHLAA!.

The resident population in Wirral using the 2013 Mid-Year Estimates, was 320,295 (males
= 154,247 and females = 166,048).

At strategic and operational levels plans to increase levels of physical activity must not be
set in stone, they should be flexible and respond to predictable changes in age structure,
gender and ethnic composition. The most recent ONS projections indicate a rise of 3.4%
in Wirral’s population (+10,970) over the 25 years from 2012 to 2037.

Oh dear WBC! So by the naughty governments own numbers you quote for playing pitches, you only need to find housing for an extra 11000 people over 25years.

I guess everyone wants to live by themselves in the future!!!! and some of us will need a second home on the Wirral !

Yes, that's the problem, everybody knows the housing growth is much less than the Government figure but the Government calculation says otherwise.

It is not just ONS data they have to use, its the Government formula as well.

WBC are well aware of the problem, most of the Wirral population are also well aware but the Government doesn't care.

There maybe needs to be a slight amendment to your calculation, because houses are over-priced on the Wirral (according to another Government formula), there is an adjustment to over-supply housing to bring the prices down. This is totally unreal, a developer is not going to over-supply houses, they will take longer to sell. Most developers are on a build-to-demand scenario these days, they aren't built until the buyers put their deposit down.

So they have the evidence

Why don't they just challenge the numbers and show its unrealistic rather than pushing ahead and releasing swaths of greenebelt

They need to grow a backbone and start standing up for us.

If in September any greenbelt is released it shows how weak our council is.

Whats the point of paying anything for these people if they cant do anything and will just bend over and take it.

Its a disgrace, if they just took some action rather than blame each other they may win back some respect.

At the moment I just see a bun fight were we end up being the losers again.

I'm getting fed up with every bit of land on the east coast being built on whilst the west coast is preserved as 'green belt.' It is a concept which originally applied to London anyway, not the Wirral.

About time West Kirby, Hoylake and Heswall saw a lot more building if you ask me.

Probably right but I think it would be far better to build a bridge from N Wales across the River Dee, motorway across Wirral to join the tunnels to Liverpool. That would reduce the traffic problems from N Wales to L'pool, make easier access to Wales and beyond once the Panamax port is fully operational and provide work for the locals.
Make a new town in Wales by using farms that serve no purpose other than providing milk for UK only and turn Offa's Dyke into an expressway .

You are correct about the m53 a41 corridor. But in general the Wirral isn't I need of any further development.

It doesn't have the London / liverpool/ Manchester popowerhouse. Its rural with small business.

When will WBC learn!

Here is the Council cabinet meeting, watch it through, Meeting (and sound) starts at about 2:25 and lasts about 20 minutes.

https://wirral.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/365456