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

But it is a Tory land grab???

The Tory Government has given the council no option but to include greenbelt in their local development plan.

The consultation is starting in a few days time, you can scream and shout at the council as much as you want they still will not be able to remove greenbelt from their local development plan without breaking Government rules.

There are properties to be renovated , 3000 empty houses on Wirral, there is space for 18,000 houses on Brown Field sites on Wirral.

Not producing a 'Local Plan' prevents council from exercising proper planning control. and leaves greenbelt unprotected.

Wirral Council have failed to produce a 'Local Plan' for more than a decade

Developers use the legal loophole 'viability assessments ' to their own advantage and allows them to build more profitable houses and executive properties. Not suitable for the majority of Wirral residents.

Why didn't Wirral Council produce a 'Local Plan' when requested ?

The Council had problems producing the Local Plan in accordance with the Government rules BECAUSE they realised the amount of greenbelt that would have to be included to meet the Tory targets.

The Government has set a target, the Council have to meet it. Many of the 3000 empty homes can't be included in the plan because there is no committent from the owners to bring them back into use. Just like there isn't any commitment from Wirral Waters for most of their proposed houses.

Labour gave Councils the power to force empty houses into use, the Tories changed the rules making it incredibly difficult for Councils to do that any longer.

Greenbelt protects land, as you have seen here, local plans forced by the Government put greenbelt at risk.

quote from Javid letter to Wirral.

https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/javids-withering-letter-to-wirral-on-lack-of-local-plan/

On Friday, Javid wrote to Cllr Phil Davies, leader of Wirral Council, confirming that despite exceptional circumstances outlined by Wirral, plans for an intervention would continue.

“There has been a consistent failure to produce a Local Plan since the last Plan was adopted in 2000. The council has failed to meet milestones in published Local Development Schemes at least six times since 2004,” Javid said.

Wirral’s defence was that plan-making had been delayed by the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies and withdrawal of Government funding, but highlighted progress in that the council was forming part of the Liverpool City Region’s Single Spatial Plan.


There are no exceptional circumstances to justify why your council has made such little progress over the years… there is no justification for the length of time your council is proposing to take on further evidence gathering.”

Javid confirmed the intervention process would continue, which will “involve a team of experts, led by the chief planner, providing me with advice on next steps”. Javid also said his officials would begin discussions with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with the option of inviting it to prepare a Local Plan for Wirral on its behalf.

Meanwhile, Javid backed down from intervening with Liverpool’s Local Plan process, due to progress made since he last contacted the council. However, his letter to Mayor Joe Anderson remained stern: “I will hold you to account for your Council’s actions. Your council needs to continue to your published timetable… Any further significant delays will cause me to have considerable doubt as to whether your council is doing everything that is necessary in connection with the preparation of its Local Plan.”

Wirral Council has been contacted for comment

The Council had hoped to get commitment from Wirral Waters for their new homes, this would have alleviated much of the target (ie preserved much more, if not all the greenbelt). So the Council delayed and delayed but of course Wirral Waters/Peel is very good at making loads of noise but very little commitment.

The Council are between a rock and a hard place, Government targets vs constituents up in arms about greenbelt.

The Government are playing their usual games of getting the blame on anyone else apart from the Government, looks like they are passing the book from their intervention team to Liverpool City Region now as a continuation of telfon-shoulders.

The whole of the new homes thing is making a lot of rich people even richer. The affordable homes thing is a joke, almost every developer gets permission to ignore the target number of affordable homes because the Councils are under so much pressure to get as many homes built as possible.

Liverpool and Wirral were the only councils in the North West to have been contacted !

Wirral's excuse as quoted in the above :


Wirral’s defence was that plan-making had been delayed by the abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies and withdrawal of Government funding, but highlighted progress in that the council was forming part of the Liverpool City Region’s Single Spatial Plan.


So when was Government funding withdrawn in relation to not producing plans ?

Regional Spatial Strategies as I understand, means combining the needs for the housing over the whole of , in this case, the Merseyside area.
Liverpool use Morris Homes as developers.
Developers can choose the most salubrious land to develop .
Morris homes like prestigious , affluent, towns and villages surrounded by beautiful countryside....
So who has chosen the huge swathes of Green Belt, Liverpool City Region or Wirral ?
Considering the numbers of properties allocated to each piece of Green Belt, who has already decided the individual numbers of 1/2/3/4/5/ bed houses. Someone must have , otherwise they couldn't have calculated the numbers of houses allocated for each Green Belt site.

We are being kept in the dark and a meeting this week it clearly indicated it was a meeting purely to attempt to appease as the councillor obviously didn't have or wouldn't part with any information , other than 'sign petitions' ,or write to the Minister for Housing. He couldn't even say who the developers are, but clearly one developer is in the frame for the allocated £millions .

This has to be pointing fingers at someone other than central Government.

So I am wondering if Liverpool have taken control of identifying our land, for the benefit of the developers. Developers whom they already have considerably deals with and it is in fact for the benefit of people from the whole of the Merseyside area and mostly Liverpool, and not for the people of Wirral.

Where are the jobs to go with these exclusive houses ? Not around here.

Let's not forget that this council also voted for using Green Belt for Hoylake Golf Resort which includes 160 Band H Executive houses.

Regional Spacial Strategy works in parallel with the Local Plans, its like a hierarchical structure.

The quantity of houses is a simple formula dependent on area, they don't plan everything down to house level.

This is only a plan, its not a program, if loads of houses get built by a developer on brownfield land that they have been sitting on, it alleviates the requirement of the green belt land. Peel are sitting on loads of brownfield land without committing themselves and this is partly what is causing/creating the problem.

I'm not aware of any special relationship between Liverpool Council and Morris Homes, the allocated housing development partners are Redrow, Willmott Dixon and Liverpool Mutual Homes. There are loads of other developers building homes in/around Liverpool as well, especially student accommodation.

Where would you locate 12,000 homes on the Wirral? The Council would love to know if it can be done without green belt.

Jobs and houses are chicken and eggs, you do both, build houses and build industrial/business buildings and hope it balances out, if you haven't got one available, the other won't work. Likewise the investors that pay for developments won't invest unless their is a strategy for both and businesses won't locate either.

There is always the back-up plan of knocking houses down in crime riddled areas, the politicians in this world are still naive enough to believe you put people in nice new buildings and they are instantly cured of being thugs, druggies etc.

Morris Homes High Spec New Homes. Head Office based in Liverpool.
Building:
Blundellsands, Allerton, Garston, St Helen's. Acre Lane Wirral (approved), Upton Dene Chester, atm, more further afield like Widnes
Acre Lane:
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hundreds-homes-built-wirral-despite-14933471

Redrow have probably used up all their allotted space. Redrow walked hand in hand with Joe.. but he has been told to fire Redrow and they only seem to build luxury housing in prime locations .

https://confidentials.com/liverpool/mayor-joe-told-fire-redrow-and-follow-your-leader

Anyway, obviously all things considered, it appears that you are in favour of the developments, unless you just argue for the sake of it. (?)
I am surprised as it will no doubt be destructive in many different ways to the history of the area. If these plots are needed for houses, how much more will be needed for schools etc, roads, and all the infrastructure. They could get just as many smaller, non executive houses, on fewer plots but once more the ordinary man will not be able to afford anything.

They could in fact flatten most of Birkenhead and start again. It would do everyone a favour and improve the surroundings for those who have to live amongst the tat .

Not once have I have not indicated my favour one way or the other. I'm merely pointing out that the Government has forced local councils to allocate green belt land to new build, even though you don't appear to like that fact.

If Birkenhead was flattened and rebuilt there would be an even greater need to build on green belt as the housing density would be reduced. You would also be knocking down around three hundred listed buildings but I guess they are just tat..

If Birkenhead was made into a nice place for people to be, then it has to be better. Even if there were fewer houses.

I see there are plans for the two council building North and South Annexe.. now they are tat !

I still don't consider the Government to be the sole responsibility for this , council should have been awake and done what was requested of them, 10 yrs ago and also there should also be clauses incorporated into developers like Peel , having a limited time to complete their promises, After that time has elapsed reclaim the land, just as is happening with compulsory purchase of Green Belt. No one should be purchasing land that will not be used for the next 10 or 15 yrs. That is wrong.!

Now I'm going to sleep.. Nighty night.

Peel haven't made any promises so they can't be given a time expiration date.

The Tory Government have effectively stopped Councils from taking over unused property.

The 12,000 homes in 15 years target wasn't around 10 years ago. That target is purely of the Governments making and what is driving Councils to have to re-allocate green belt, the Councils have no real say in the matter, they have to obey or get over-ruled. It doesn't matter what the Council does (awake or asleep), the green belt will be re-allocated.

My life in Birkenhead has been much better than when I lived in Heswall, I was pleased to move back.

There’s loads of space in Caldy, neston, heswall, etc. Stick up some 25 storey flats. Or do people only want four bedroom houses? It sounds daft taking up so much space because people don’t like living in proximity of one another.
Where else are they supposed to build, in space/under the sea?

Neston isn’t in Wirral it’s in West Cheshire, Heswall and Caldy have a lot of green belt surrounding them as well as protected areas.

Hello, I've read the thread and think there are a few misconceptions about were the demand has come from.

Firstly WBC conducted (or Outsourced to a company in Manchester) the SHLAA which has created the 'demand' As ludicrous as the numbers are this is what has driven the 800 houses per year. The question we must put to WBC is why they ever accepted the findings of the SHLAA and allowed it to be put to government for approval. The leader of WBC has himself admitted the number are ridiculous for a peninsula such as ours.

Who Allowed a company with no knowledge of Wirral to conduct such an important study
Who in WBC checked the numbers
Who In WBC approved there use
Why did WBC not stop the use of the SHLAA which has massively inflated figures.

If you read the SHLAA it speaks about 7000+ extra jobs on the WIrral (from where you may ask?)

The fact is WBC put to the government a SHLAA that use false is grossly incorrect information. The government then accepted this flawed report to assist in its national house building tragets.

What we are seeing today is the culmination of gross mismanagement and incompetence on a scale that should in any other line of business lead to Gross Misconduct and the removal of a failed Council Leadership.

What we must ensure in the interim is NONE of our precious greenbelt scarified because of their failures. What happens in 15 years if they are allowed to do this. Eventually there will none left!

We must get to the root cause of this catastrophic failure by WBC and look at the facts.

A declining Population
Fewer jobs
increase in empty houses
An aging population
Less infrastructure than 20 years ago.

Ask yourself, really, genuinely, where is the demand for 12000 houses on the Wirral?

There is lots the Council can do instead of Blaming PEEL and the Government, challenge the numbers. They have a Legal obligation to produce a Local Plan NOT to give away our greenbelt. Even if the PEEL debacle is pie in the sky there is still plenty of land to regenerate and breath life back into Birkenhead.

Again where is the demand for 12000 houses (The SHLAA which was written by consultants in Manchester using data from Experian stating we would have an additional 7000+ jobs on the Wirral!) All of which was sanctioned and approved by WBC!

WBC have royally f**ked up and must now put the wrong right before they destroy the Wirral.

I read in a document on councils website that Developers were asked (presumably by the Council) to look at Greenfield sites and come up with what they could build on them and which ones were more suitable (i presume e.g. those close to existing infrastructure and services) Think this survey was about 3 or 4 years ago. . Its a long document about 250 pages with a load of stats and estimates for population growth and birth and death statistics, including estimates for non uk migrant increases.
Council have a financial conflict of interest in the type of housing built with a difference of at least £1500 council tax between affordable housing and higher rated ones .

Apparently 6000 empty homes in wirral would suggest demand may not support 12000 new ones.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45079648

Plans to build 460,000 homes on land released from the green belt will not help young families get on to the property ladder, say campaigners.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England said 78% of planned developments on greenfield sites do not fall under the government's "affordable" definition.

Its director said people are "being sold a lie" and will "go on struggling to afford a place to live".

A government spokesman said green belt protections were being strengthened.

He added that the green belt is around 30,000 hectares larger than in 1997 and councils can only make changes to its boundaries in "exceptional circumstances".