Packed meeting told development would mean devastation

A packed public meeting heard a massive housing development on green belt land would have a devastating effect on their community.

Around 300 people gathered at Summerhill School in Lodge Lane, Kingswinford, to hear civic leaders back their objections to an outline planning application for 557 homes on an area of land opposite the school known as The Triangle.

The application is one of a number of proposals for the area, which campaigners from the Wall Heath and Kingswinford Green Belt Group say could lead to more than 1,700 new homes in the region.

Speaking at the meeting, on May 22, Kingswinford’s Conservative MP, Mike Wood, said: “If these proposals were forced through they would make a mockery of local decision making; they would make mockery of community consultation and they would have a disastrous effect on our local environment, our local infrastructure and local services.”

Developers claim the land in The Triangle is agricultural and does not significantly serve the purpose of green belt to stop urban sprawl so could be reclassified under new planning law as grey belt and released for development.

Mr Wood reminded people at the meeting of the controversial decision by Dudley Council leader to withdraw from the proposed Black Country Plan in 2022 after 20,800 people responded to a consultation rejecting a plan to build homes on green belt.

He said: “If outline planning permission is granted, the value of what they can sell it for to developers goes up astronomically and they will make an absolute killing.

“The application can be beaten, we beat the Black Country Plan, the community spoke clearly with one voice.

“We know we can do that with this application, I have every confidence the council will reject this, then we can make sure we put as much possible on the government to listen to the local community and listen to local decision makers.”

Dudley Council leader and Kingswinford ward councillor, Cllr Patrick Harley, was also at the meeting and reminded residents a recent review of the council’s own development plan for the borough has been accepted by a planning inspector without any provision for green belt development.

Speaking after the meeting to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Harley said: “The reaction tonight was fantastic, a packed hall, there must have been 300 people at least, strongly opinionated on why we shouldn’t be building on green belt.

“It is green belt, the planning inspector agreed we don’t have grey belt in Dudley.

“Eventually the housing minister must respect the viewpoint of the planning inspector, the community and the people of Kingswinford and Wall Heath who have spoken out very strongly tonight.”