Dear Supporters,
The Assault on our Green Spaces Continues
The Greenfield Estate Trustees want to destroy this iconic view from GRANGE ROAD, WEST KIRBY - by building 46 houses on the site. They intend to submit an outline planning application. This is despite the estate being designated as Local Green Space in the draft Local Plan.
Their planning consultants state that this will provide much needing housing. However, the emerging Local Plan has identified more than enough brownfield sites to provide enough homes to reach their targets, without destroying green belt and green spaces.
They hope to persuade people that this development should go ahead because it will be providing some affordable housing - the definition of "affordable housing" under planning law means that this "affordable" housing will be unaffordable to most!
The planning consultants arguments that this development will benefit the environment are laughable. PLEASE COMMENT on their Planning Consultants website and LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
Elsewhere, we have been made aware of surveyors in fields last week in BELMONT DRIVE, PENSBY. When approached the surveyor said they had no idea who the survey was for or why it was being surveyed! (Of course they don’t know!)
There has also been devastation on a plot of land next to the National Trust Land in SANDY LANE, IRBY, which has been totally stripped of trees and vegetation by a developer who hopes to build on the land.
And plans by Birkenhead School to build on NOCTORUM FIELD (including 33 houses) will now go to the Planning Inspectorate after fierce local opposition.
Wirral Council believe they have produced a Local Plan which will have Brownfield developments only. The Developers obviously believe otherwise. Why else would they bother with all the surveys, land clearance, consultations and “green washing” PR Exercises which we have seen from the likes of Leverhulmes and the Greenfield (West Kirby) Estate Trustees in recent weeks?
There is still a very real risk that once the Developers have made their representations to the Government Local Plan Inspector that the Inspector will decide that Green Belt must be released. This risk is increased because the Council insist on sticking to their target of 12000 new homes based on the out dated Standard Method using 2014 population figures. Experts believe the target, based on up to date information, should be more like 3000 to 4000 homes all which could easily be accommodated on Brownfield.
In a recent press release Leverhulmes stated that the Borough has a shortfall of houses, saying “This shortfall has been made worse due to a lack of meaningful progress being made on preparing a deliverable and viable Local Plan in recent years.”
It is absolutely clear that Developers will hope to prove that the Brownfield sites that the Council have identified in the Local Plan are not deliverable or viable. They will have their expensive planning and legal times lined up to tear the Council’s Local Plan apart and will argue that Green Belt should be released.
PLEASE HELP BY DONATING to the Wirral Green Space Alliance Legal Fighting Fund so we can challenge the Developers at the Local Plan inspection and fight to save our Green Belt
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/savewirralsgreenbelt
Thank you for your support.