Bradley Thomas MP has met with the Housing and Planning Minister amid his ongoing fight to save Bromsgrove and the Villages’ greenbelt.
The local MP was joined at the meeting on Monday (February 9th) by the Leader of Bromsgrove District Council, Cllr Karen May.
At the meeting with Matthew Pennycook, the Minister for Housing and Planning, Bradley demanded the Government reverses the 85% increase in Bromsgrove and the Villages’ housing target as it is based on a flawed formula.
The flawed formula the Government is using fails to accurately measure local housing demand in Bromsgrove and the Villages, creating an incorrect housing need figure for the constituency.
The Government’s affordability ratio shows the relationship between local house prices and jobs available in that locality. However, this does not accurately reflect the reality of Districts such as Bromsgrove, where many people commute into major cities where there are higher paying jobs, which puts upward pressure on Bromsgrove house prices and makes the local income figure artificially low, both of which incorrectly drive up our housing allocation.
Bradley has previously warned about the Government’s increase in the flawed affordability multiplier. His assessment shows that this will directly result in thousands more homes being built in high-quality greenbelt in the Bromsgrove and the Villages when there is not a sufficient local need for this to happen. The effect of this change will in fact be to accelerate development in the very places that the greenbelt was established to protect.
Bromsgrove District is 89% greenbelt and 79% rural, but, at the same time as increasing Bromsgrove’s target, the Government has made the decision to reduce Birmingham’s target by 31% - despite the city having at least 140 hectares of brownfield land that could be built on.
Ever since he was first elected, Bradley has been fighting to save the greenbelt.
As part of his ongoing fight he launched a Parliamentary petition, signed by more than 5,900 people, which demanded that the 85% increase is reversed, in addition to the reversal of the reduction in Birmingham’s housing target to ensure the burden is shared in a fair and proportionate way and only allow new houses to be built when the accompanying infrastructure is provided.
In responding to Bradley’s petition, the Government refused to reduce Bromsgrove’s housing target and to reverse the decrease in Birmingham’s housing target. Instead, the Government continued to attempt to justify the flawed formula used to calculate the figure.
The meeting with the Minister was Bradley’s latest attempt to get him to “see sense” and reverse the increase in Bromsgrove and the Villages’ housing target.
Following the meeting, Bradley said:
“I’m leaving no stone unturned in the fight to save our precious greenbelt. Once it’s gone, its gone.
“I didn’t have high hopes going into the meeting with the Housing and Planning Minister. So far the Minister and the Government have failed to listen to the people of Bromsgrove and the Villages who don’t want to see their greenbelt disappear in the name of a flawed formula.
“Having set out why the formula is flawed, I did however hope the Minister would see sense, but instead he continued to attempt to justify the Government’s decision to increase our housing target by 85%.
“I told him that my constituents and I aren’t NIMBYs. We all except the need for new houses, but not on the scale the Government is imposing on Bromsgrove and the Villages. The Government should build on brownfield land first and provide communities with the infrastructure that will be needed before any houses are built.
“I believe that Bromsgrove District Council must robustly challenge the Government’s methodology behind the housing target, including seeking a legal opinion on the legitimacy of the approach.
“I was elected with a mandate to fight to protect our greenbelt and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
