“Lay off our green belt” says Rushcliffe Borough Council Leader to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner MP outlined a new strategy on Tuesday (July 30) for Green Belt land release and local authorities now needing to review their green belt areas if needed to meet housing targets.
It follows over 13,000 new homes being allocated to be built in Rushcliffe in the last decade, with Rushcliffe having to accept central government’s ‘duty to co-operate’ to agree to an additional 3,500 more homes, in addition to the 6,000 already allocated, to meet the needs of the Nottingham City local authority area, dwellings the City Council said it could not accommodate.
The current consultation stage of new housing targets has outlined nearly 4,000 further new homes to be built in Rushcliffe until 2041, rising from 609 annually to 831.
In comparison, the same consultation indicates the Nottingham City local authority area, with a higher number of brown or newly defined grey belt sites, has been given a lower target reducing annually from 1,845 homes to 1,451.
Mr Clarke has now sent this message to the Deputy Prime Minister — “hands off our green belt”.
“We have accepted more than enough of our fair share,” he said, “Our residents are understandably very protective of it having already seen first hand the large volumes of housing built in their communities in the last 10 years, many having to be included at central government’s increased demands in the last Local Plan in 2014.
“We fully understand there is housing shortage nationally but we have already stepped up to the plate and here in Rushcliffe developers have already built some of the highest levels of new houses of anywhere in the East Midlands in recent years.
“We simply can’t build on more green belt land unjustly.”
This comes after Mr Clarke sent a letter to the new Rushcliffe MP James Naish earlier this month in a plea to protect the Borough from development of the green belt in anticipation of this announcement, and he has encouraged all residents to write to the MP to express their views on the new housing targets.
