Dudley Council’s leader blasted builders who accused the authority of ‘rushing’ its local plan for political reasons.

The council is hosting hearings throughout June by an independent government planning inspector who will rule on whether it can adopt the Dudley Local Plan, which sets out details including where houses can be built until 2041.

During the hearings representatives of the construction industry have been complaining the council forced the plan through under old regulations to reduce their predicted housing needs and avoid the unpopular move of releasing green belt land for development.

Planning and development consultancy Lichfields, in a report prepared for developers Taylor Wimpey, said: “The council has sought to ‘rush’ the plan forward to examination in advance of the 12th March 2025 deadline, only so that they can utilise the provisions of the 2023 Framework. 

“Taylor Wimpey considers that this is unacceptable and inappropriate; and fails to deal with the strategic issues arising in the plan period.” 

Council leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, is determined to retain greenbelt in the borough and robustly rejected developer’s complaints.

Cllr Harley said: “Well, they would say that wouldn’t they. Our aim is to protect green belt, developers like these clearly by that statement wish to destroy it by building on it. 

“As councillors we are custodians of that green belt and we will do our very best to protect it.”

The council prepared its plan under transitional rules and builders say it falls so short of the amount of predicted housing needed under the new rules.

Lichfields added: “Based on the revised standard method (SM) from the December 2024 Framework, Dudley has a housing need of 24,990 dwellings for the plan period, an increase of 13,821 dwellings from the identified local housing need (LHN) in the DLP.

“This approach will severely impact the longevity of the DLP as it will be instantly superseded and undermined, resulting in significant delays to the delivery of housing, which will create additional public costs.”