'We don't feel listened to over planning changes'

Changes to the planning system, which would see some areas of green belt land redesignated, have prompted people living near those areas to say they are not being listened to, amid fears of inappropriate development.

On the edge of Aldridge, near Walsall, Christine Edwards looks out from her garden at a landscape of of ancient trees and hedgerows, where carrots are growing in the green fields.

She is horrified at the suggestion from developers that this green belt land could be redesignated as grey belt.

"I just don't see how a field that is producing food, in an area that is liable to flooding, on to narrow lanes for access can be designated as grey belt," she said.

Grey belt is a relatively new term in national planning policy, referring to green belt land which has already seen some development, or land on which development would not lead to a joining up of existing communities.

Developers are proposing to build thousands of new houses on sites across the borough, whilst Walsall Council recently consulted on a draft local plan which earmarks more land for housing.

The council said it had a legal obligation to provide more sites for new homes, while the government said changes to planning rules would deliver 1.5 million new homes by the end of the current parliament.

Ashbury Strategic Land, part of the Bellway Homes group, said 350 houses off Birch Hill Road, would have a "limited impact" and deliver more than a year's worth of Walsall's affordable housing need.

David Smith, who lives nearby, shares Edwards' concern.

"We know that houses are needed, but we don't want to see them built in inappropriate places," he said.

"We don't feel like we've been listened to at all."

It is a similar story on other sites across Aldridge.

Judith Butler lives close to Bosty Lane, where a developer is proposing 650 new houses be built.

"The people of Walsall feel like they don't really have a voice," she suggested.

"Are we being heard? Are objections being made easy? They are looking to see the land changed from green belt to grey belt, nobody is entirely sure how they can do that."

They are not alone, as Storm Goretti hit earlier this month, dozens of people braved the elements at a meeting to voice their concerns about the proposed developments.

In their firing line, both the Labour government and the Conservative-run Walsall Council.

The authority is currently drawing up a local plan, in which it will say where 20,000 new homes can be built over the next 20 years.

The draft plan includes some areas currently categorised as green belt.

Deputy leader Adrian Andrew, who lives near one of the proposed developments, said no final decisions about the plan had been made and that the council had a brownfield first policy.

"This is the greenest grey belt I've ever seen," he said, suggesting the government had "declared war" on green spaces.

He accused developers of "chancing their arm" in the hope of getting permission to build on green belt in a changing planning system.

Under government proposals ministers could get the final say on developments of more than 150 homes, rather than local councillors.

But the prime minister has denied accusations that the changes will lead to the bulldozing of the countryside.

"We're not going to plough through farmland, we are going to make sensible plans to build houses," he told the Conservative Aldridge Brownhills MP Wendy Morton in Parliament last week.

Developers are attracted to green field sites because they do not come with the same costly complications associated with previously developed brownfield, such as land contamination.

There is a consensus across political parties that more houses need to be built if younger people are not to be locked out of the dream of home ownership.

But finding the land means rows like the one happening in Aldridge are brewing up right across the country.

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