North East Derbyshire District Councillor fears Government housing plans could ‘concrete over our countryside

A bid by Conservative councillors to persuade NE Derbyshire District Council to urge the Labour Government to reconsider proposed changes to planning policy has failed after they raised fears the proposals could lead to a requirement to deliver hundreds of new homes every year and see the removal of some Green Belt protection.
The Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group, Cllr Charlotte Cupit, and four other Conservative councillors – including Conservative Group Leader Alex Dale, Stephen Clough, Mark Foster, and Neil Baker – requisitioned the Labour-led council to call an Extraordinary Meeting on September 12 to discuss proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework.
Cllr Cupit told the meeting: “The new Government’s proposed changes on planning will have significant, far-reaching and lasting impacts on our district if they proceed.”
She highlighted that the Labour Government has pledged to build at least 1.5m houses and even though she recognises the need for affordable housing she and fellow Conservative councillors fear the plans will force a large number of new homes on areas like North East Derbyshire.
Cllr Cupit added: “If the changes proposed by the new Government go ahead they will concrete over our countryside. We risk the bits of our district we value the most being unrecognisable to future generations.”
The proposed changes include giving Government the power to set housing delivery numbers for each local authority which Cllr Cupit claims could mean a mandatory annual housing delivery of 622 new homes each year for North East Derbyshire – which would be the equivalent of a 178per cent increase – while sparing cities and urban centres from similar targets for new housing.
Other plans include allowing development on low-quality Green Belt areas to be newly defined as ‘Grey Belt’ and also placing an emphasis on helping to meet unmet development needs of neighbouring areas like Chesterfield, Derby and Sheffield.
They also include removing the opportunity for communities to comment on individual planning applications by removing the ability to challenge a planning application once it is in a Local Plan and for decisions to be made upon whole new towns by an unspecified panel.
The Labour Government plans to build over 300,000 new homes annually over the next five years to meet its own target of one-and-half million properties with plans to address the housing shortage crisis with fast-tracking developments and by prioritising local buyers for local developments.
It is also planning to prioritise building on brownfield-used land to reduce environmental impacts and to introduce the new ‘grey belt’ land definition to encourage more developments on low-quality Green Belt areas.
Cllr Cupit added: “The priority for me and for us all is, as local councillors, to represent what is best for this area, North East Derbyshire.
“The proposals as they stand would have a devastating impact on our Green Belt and greenfields at the same time as moving us to a centralised planning system dictated by and obsessed with numbers and bowing down to letting developers run the system.”
Cllr Dale told the meeting the scale of the expected increase in housing delivery would change the ‘semi-rural countryside district’ into more of a suburb for Chesterfield and Sheffield which would affect the infrastructure and place a strain on services.
In addition, Cllr Clough fears that if Sheffield, Rotherham and Chesterfield cannot build their own housing that will be passed over to North East Derbyshire and for places like Killamarsh that could have a ‘drastic effect’.
Liberal Democrat David Hancock supported the motion because even though he did not think it was perfect he argued that there needs to be local control.
However, Council Leader and Labour Cllr Nigel Barker said the Government has pledged to tackle the housing crisis and the council will be discussing the situation as part of a consultation on the proposed changes to the NPPF and to oppose the plans would take away any opportunity to influence that process.
He added: “Whilst we, as a group, fully support the attempts of this new Government to try and repair the housing market which is viewed by most experts as being broken, we accept that North East Derbyshire will have to play a part in that process.
“However, we do want to make some constructive comments into the consultation which will help the final recommendations.”
Cllr Barker also highlighted that the housing crisis needs addressing because 25 per cent of ‘households’ in North East Derbyshire are unable to afford an affordable home and that over 2,200 people are on a waiting list in need of affordable housing in North East Derbyshire.
Fellow Labour councillor Stephen Pickering stressed that private rents have doubled, temporary homelessness has more than doubled and house building targets have repeatedly been missed so positive work is needed to address these problems.
The Conservative councillors’ motion was defeated after 62per cent of the councillors at the meeting voted against the call for the council to urge the Labour Government to reconsider the proposed changes to planning policy, while 31per cent voted in favour of the motion and seven per cent abstained.