Final public consultation on local plan to begin next week

The final round of public consultation on plans for 30,000 houses across the county is set to begin after senior councillors backed the proposals.

Calls for the local plan review to be paused and for the consultation to be extended were rejected by Shropshire Council’s cabinet at a meeting on Monday afternoon.

Members unanimously backed the latest draft of the plan – the ‘regulation 19’ version – and agreed to a seven-week public consultation to begin on December 16.

This is one week longer than the legal requirement, allowing for the Christmas break, but backbench councillors said it was not long enough.

Opposition Liberal Democrat group leader Roger Evans said the process should be stalled entirely to allow officers to consider concerns raised by councillors and the public in more depth.

But Councillor Robert Macey, portfolio holder for housing and strategic planning, said that was not necessary.

He said: “We are at a stage now where officers are saying to us that they think this plan is sound from their perspective and looking at the evidence they have got.”

Councillor Macey said people had another chance to voice their concerns during the last stage of consultation, adding: “I cannot agree with the idea of pausing the process at this stage.”

Both Shifnal councillors, Ed Bird and Kevin Turley, requested that the consultation period be extended to 12 weeks, given the size and significance of the document and the timing. Comparison was made to other consultations the council is currently running for up to 12 weeks on much smaller documents.

A public question from Charles Green of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Shropshire also asked for an extension and suggested the process was being “rushed”, with less than two months since the last consultation stage ended.

He asked: “Are members content that a consultation period for as little as seven weeks at this final, crucial and different stage, beginning the week before Christmas, during a time when council offices and libraries will be closed, during continued Covid-19 restrictions, and for a period that seems designed to be the minimum period that can be justifiably got away with, will cast the Council in a good light during the supposed season of goodwill?”

Councillor Macey said: “Cabinet members are content that regulation 19 of the local plan has met the standards expected and has not been a rushed process.

“The consultation period is in excess of the minimum requirement set by national regulations specifically recognising the Christmas period.”

Councillor Macey warned that even more housing would be imposed on the county by the government if the council failed to adopt an updated local plan, and the council could be unable to fend off unwanted schemes if a housing land supply could not be demonstrated.

He said the government’s imminent changes to the planning system would see Shropshire’s housing target soar to 46,000 over the next 18 years, compared to the 30,800 in the emerging plan.

Council leader Peter Nutting said: “It becomes a free-for-all if you do not have a current local plan in place which shows a five year land supply.

“Some of the villages which at the moment will be protected will not be if we haven’t got the proper plans in place.”

Summing up, Councillor Macey said: “We have weighed all the arguments up and we think this strikes a positive balance for Shropshire going forward for the long term.”

Following the regulation 19 consultation, the plan will need to be approved by the full council at a meeting in March 2021, after which it will be sent for government examination. It is expected to be adopted in spring 2022.

The plan sets out sites earmarked for significant housing and business developments across the county to be built up to 2038 along with a raft of new planning policies on things like the environment and affordable housing.

It includes major schemes at the former Ironbridge Power Station, Tern Hill Barracks and RAF Cosford and a new 1,050-home ‘garden village’ to the west of Bridgnorth at Tasley.