Borough Council hits back after it was urged to scrap its entire future plan for thousands of homes or risk being spiked

A Derbyshire council has hit back at the Government after it was urged to scrap its entire future plan for thousands of homes or risk it being spiked.

Kelly Ford, the Government planning inspector overseeing Erewash Borough Council’s plans for 7,044 more homes by 2040, says the blueprint is currently “unsound” despite three years of work.

She wrote to the council in late November giving it an urgent 10-day deadline to consider withdrawing the plan due to “significant shortcomings” or risk her recommending it be found “unsound” and to recommend it should not be adopted.

The final decision on both moves – withdrawal and rejection of the plan – ultimately rests with Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, an issue which council leader James Dawson said this month leaves the authority in “limbo”.

Now Steve Birkninshaw, the borough council’s head of planning, has written back to Ms Ford saying “we are struggling to see the fundamental unsoundness issue with the plan that you do”.

It has asked the inspector 21 questions for additional clarification, writing: “In seeking the clarification set out above please understand that we are not seeking to challenge your professional planning judgements, as we note that to date you have yet to make any such judgements.

“In that context we would like to give you the opportunity to reconsider whether the evidence that has been presented to you to date is adequate, proportionate and tightly focused on supporting and justifying the policies concerned, and indeed whether the additional evidence you appear to be seeking could be regarded as straying from those principles.”

Mr Birkinshaw contests the inspector’s view that the authority’s Green Belt review was “not comprehensive”.

The council has already had to extend its plan from 2037 to 2040 due to delays and its lack of evidence for this extra gap has been found wanting, which Mr Birkinshaw also contests, saying this would be increasingly unreliable over time.

In Erewash, the council must earmark land for 523 houses per year – up from 376 – which would total 6,948 over the course of the blueprint.

Ms Ford said the council was 820 homes short of this target and needed to find more space, which it has now done, through planned new sites in Sandiacre, Breadsall Hilltop, Borrowash, Breaston, Draycott and West Hallam.

However, she says this leaves the council just 96 homes above what it needs, to a total of 7,044.

Meanwhile, there is extensive criticism of the council’s Green Belt land assessment, with a perceived lack of clarity and explanation for sites to be excluded from development and those which were to be added to become new Green Belt land.

The letter from Ms Ford said the council’s plan had last included 260 acres of Green Belt land to be used for housing and 67 acres of land to be added into the Green Belt. 

Despite this, she says, the plan to add new Green Belt land has now been dropped without explanation.

The initial Core Strategy had been submitted by the former Conservative administration in 2022, but the now incumbent Labour administration had sought to scrap it and restart in December 2023.

This move was blocked in one of only two Government interventions – then Conservative – to stop councils scrapping their housing blueprints, which led to Labour continuing with the process.