Barwell blocks council's Local Plan over green belt development

At a meeting yesterday, the Labour-run council was due to send the Local Plan to the executive for final approval but this was postponed after housing minister Gavin Barwell issued a holding direction.

Mr Barwell’s intervention came after he was lobbied by local Conservative MP Philip Davies to stop the Local Plan’s adoption because the council’s plan includes building 11,000 homes on green belt land by 2030. A council spokesperson said building on the green belt is necessary because of the “scale of building land required”.

A spokesperson for Bradford Council said: “Mr Davies has raised several concerns about the core strategy which have already been considered by the government’s planning inspector.”

Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “This is frankly outrageous behaviour by the MP for Shipley [Mr Davies]… We played by the rules and our plan won the approval of the inspector. Yet now we have this one MP with his own agenda who has created a vacuum of uncertainty and a potential development free-for-all. We will do everything we can to get the approved plan back on track for the benefit of the Bradford District.”

Secretary of state, Sajid Javid, will now look at the concerns raised by Mr Davies and decide whether he will formally intervene.

Mr Barwell’s letter to the council said several issues had been raised including “the proposed release of green belt” and “development of green belt before brownfield land is exhausted”.

A spokesperson for the council said this process “could take many months” and lead to “uncertainty” which developers could take advantage of “because of the lack of a robust and adopted Local Plan”.

In a similar situation earlier this year, Birmingham City Council was forced to pause its Local Plan after local MP Andrew Mitchell appealed to then-housing minister Brandon Lewis to intervene over the council’s plan to build 6,000 homes on green belt land.

The council spokesperson said: “After considering Mr Davies’ concerns and Bradford Council’s response, the inspector agreed with the council’s analysis that over 42,100 houses would be needed over the next 15 years and that brownfield land should be prioritised for the delivery of this. The inspector also agreed that such is the scale of building land required, the release of green field and green belt land will be necessary.

Mr Davies has been approached for comment.