The South Glos Post

Mangotsfield councillors and residents have handed hundreds of petition signatures to the Leader of South Gloucestershire Council in defence of the local Green Belt.

The petitions are in response to a planning application for 180 new houses on Green Belt land at Cossham Street in Mangotsfield.

The developers – Taylor Wimpey UK – have submitted the plans on the back of the government’s controversial Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) that calls for 32,800 new houses to be built in South Gloucestershire through a series of sprawling ‘urban extensions’ on Green Belt land.

Efforts to scrap the RSS are being stepped up in an effort to discourage speculative planning applications, which have followed the government’s confirmation that its RSS planning blueprint has ‘substantial weight’ in planning terms – even though it is yet to be finalised.

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Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council

Proposals to help small businesses and defend the district against over-development are to be put in front of Ministers.

In the summer, Conservative councillors drew up proposals that would see the government pay small business rate relief automatically and abolish regional planning, including the controversial Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) document that calls for 32,800 new houses to be built in the district.

Automatic rate relief is being pursued by councillors after the Federation of Small Businesses estimated that more than half of small businesses nationally miss out on claiming back up to £1,200 off their business rates.

The Conservative proposals were sent to the Local Government Association for scrutiny and it has now announced that they will be passed to the Secretary of State in order to give the go-ahead to implement them.

Commenting on the rate relief proposal, Cllr John Godwin, the council’s economic chief and chairman of the authority’s economic taskforce, said:

“Small businesses form the backbone of our local economy and employ thousands of our residents.

Business rates are the third largest cost to small firms, after salaries and rent, but despite the council’s efforts to promote the rate relief that is available, we suspect that many small businesses in the area are still not claiming it.

We are in the deepest and longest recession in this country’s history and many businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water, so we are pleased that our Sustainable Communities Act proposal to make the payment of rate relief automatic is to be put in front of Ministers.

This is part of a much wider council effort to help more businesses survive through these tough times.”

Commenting on the proposal to abolish the Regional Spatial Strategy, Cllr Brian Allinson, the council’s planning chief, added:

“In October, a government planning inspector announced the go-ahead for a 220 new home development in Frampton Cotterell and stated that the RSS had ‘substantial weight’.

This decision has ramifications for the entire district and so we will continue to push Ministers to scrap their unpopular Regional Spatial Strategy and we are appealing to local MPs to help us with this.”

Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council

Calls by South Gloucestershire’s Conservative councillors to scrap the region’s controversial planning blueprint have won the backing of a senior Conservative MP.

Grant Shapps MP, the Shadow Minister for Housing, promised the district that a future Conservative government would scrap Labour’s Regional Spatial Strategy, as he visited the area this week to meet local Green Belt campaigners.

His pledge comes as a Sustainable Communities Act proposal from South Gloucestershire Council’s Conservative administration is being considered that calls for the Regional Spatial Strategy, along with regional and housing powers, to be abolished.

Efforts to scrap the RSS are being made in an effort to discourage speculative planning applications.

An application to build 450 new houses on Green Belt land in Oldland Common was rejected last month; however developers in Chipping Sodbury have recently revealed proposals for 1,000 new houses east of St John’s Way.

Both of these areas have been identified for huge new urban extensions under plans contained in the Regional Spatial Strategy in order to accommodate nearly 33,000 new houses in South Gloucestershire.

Developers also appear to have been encouraged by Government claims that the RSS has ‘considerable weight’, despite Ministers announcing recently that more work needed to be done on a ‘sustainability appraisal’ after a successful legal challenge in the East of England region.

Speaking whilst he was in South Gloucestershire, Mr Shapps said:

“The embarrassing delay to the South West Regional Spatial Strategy reveals the extent of the failure of the Government’s target-driven regional planning policy.

This discredited document is actually preventing communities from getting on and building the homes the area needs.

I back South Gloucestershire Council’s calls for the Government to scrap the RSS now. If the Government does not then I want to assure South Gloucestershire residents that a future Conservative Government will do so and allow local people to decide where new homes should go.”

He added:

“We will use cash incentives to encourage new homes to be built in a way that protects the environment and provides the infrastructure to support local communities, rather than letting unelected quangos impose unsustainable development on communities.

A future Conservative Government will match pound-for-pound the Council Tax revenue received on all new homes for a period of six years and, in order to help fix Labour’s affordable housing crisis, we will guarantee 125 pence for every pound received in Council Tax from new social homes in addition to the money already collected.”

Local campaigner and Conservative councillor Matthew Riddle, who helped launch the district-wide No Way To 33K housing campaign, has welcomed the high-profile backing, saying:

“It is the continuing existence of the RSS that convinces some developers that they can push through unsustainable and damaging planning applications like the sort that we are seeing in Chipping Sodbury, as well as elsewhere.

No green field is safe under the Government’s plans and I am delighted that Mr Shapps is backing our calls for the RSS to be scrapped and for housing and planning powers to be returned to local communities, which is where they belong.

I hope that the other parties on the council will also support this because it will send an important message to Government Ministers that we are united against their harmful plans.”

Conservative councillors are presenting a motion to the next Full Council meeting on 25 November calling on all parties on the council to agree to abolish the RSS.

Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council

South Gloucestershire Council’s Conservative planning chief has accused the Labour government of contradicting itself, following its admission of shortcomings in the way it has prepared its controversial planning blueprint for the region.

The Government has confirmed plans to carry out a new ‘Sustainability Appraisal’ after admitting flaws in how it has drawn up its latest draft of the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) for the South West.

Similar errors led to a successful legal challenge against the Regional Spatial Strategy in the East of England by Hertfordshire County Council.

However, the council has criticised the Government for contradicting itself by saying that the RSS has ‘considerable weight’, yet also admitting that the process they followed in preparing the RSS was flawed.

The news comes as Ministers face intense demands from the Council, the district-wide No Way To 33K campaign and local Green Belt campaign groups to go back to the drawing board on plans for 32,800 new houses in the district and a series of new ‘urban extensions’ to accommodate such a target, including on Green Belt land.

Cllr Brian Allinson, Conservative Cabinet Member for Planning, Transportation and Strategic Environment on South Gloucestershire Council said:

“It is becoming increasingly evident that Ministers are all over the place on how to progress their discredited Regional Spatial Strategy.

“Their latest announcement for a further sustainability appraisal calls into question the pressure that the Government is putting on the council to give considerable weight to the emerging RSS when dealing with new planning applications.

We are opposed to such pressure, which we believe is no longer tenable as the government themselves are saying that the process that they followed in preparing the RSS was flawed.”

He added:

“Ministers can do as many sustainability appraisals as they like, but we will not rest until they dramatically reduce their unsustainable 32,800 housing target and damaging urban extensions.”

The Government has said it expects the new Appraisal to be completed early in the New Year with a decision expected after soon after that.

Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council