Calls for an end to house building in Redditch

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PLANNERS must 'pull up the drawbridge' and stop building once over 6,000 more homes are put up in and around the borough, a councillor has warned.

In a plea to officers at Redditch Borough Council, Coun Carole Gandy urged them to call a halt to more building in Redditch once Local Plan Number 4 - which defines where houses should be built until 2030 and is currently out to consultation - is passed.

Speaking at an executive committee meeting on Tuesday (February 12), she said: "What happens when we get to Local Plan Number 5? Where are we going then? Morton Stanley Park? Arrow Valley Park?

"At long last we need to pull up the drawbridge and say we do not have any more land for this. The one thing people value before anything else is open space."

She added at every event she went to, residents told her open space was thing they most wanted to keep in the town.

"Building on virtually every little bit of space they've got is basically saying we don't care what you want," she added.

"When this is finished are we going to say that it is, we can't take any more?"

Ruth Bamford, the council's head of planning and regeneration, said the options once current plans were finalised would depend on national planning policy issued by the Government.

She added when Local Plan 5 came forward, no more building could be an option if it was something which had been approved nationally at the time.

"Until that stage, framework is asking us to meet an evidenced need for housing where it arises," she added.

"In one respect the council's hands are tied but there is lot of water under the bridge between now and Plan 5. I would like to remind members none of the sites actually take up open space. Redditch has one of the highest open space ratios in the UK and that will continue."

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