Borough Council set to spend £1.5m on 7,000-home master-plan

The proposed site of 150 homes in Bostocks Lane, Risley. Image from Google.

A Derbyshire council is due to spend more than £1.5 million replacing a “deeply flawed” 7,000-home masterplan.

In January, the Labour-run Erewash Borough Council opted to scrap its future housing plan, mandated to meet Government targets, after an ultimatum from an inspector.

This had followed seven years of work through two political administrations, a blocked attempt at scrapping it, the addition of thousands more homes and months of limbo.

The council must legally have or be working towards a housing plan to meet Government targets, and so must start work on producing a replacement for its spiked 7,000-home scheme.

Papers published by the authority say work on the new plan will cost more than £1.5 million and take around three years – with an aim for adoption in February 2029.

This is despite Erewash Borough Council being slated to be scrapped and merged into a new council or councils through local government reorganisation in March 2028.

It says the council’s planning policy team will need to focus purely on this issue for three years at £287,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the council will need to commission 23 different studies, as mandated by national legislation, which will cost £725,000.

Officials say much of the new plan cost has already been budgeted for and that a Government grant has helped with the shortfall, but that a £116,500 gap remains, for which more funding is needed.

Erewash has been set an annual housing target of 523 homes per year.  Government requires the borough to have a five-year housing land supply of approved homes and earmarked sites at all times – which would total 2,615 homes.

Council officials say that including all existing approved homes, the borough currently has a shortfall of 1,500 homes behind its required five-year figure, which is the minimum.

Developers often refer to the lack of a five-year land supply as justification for new homes applications and likewise Government inspectors often wave through appeals due to the lack of a five-year supply.

Officers say that when a council area does not have a five-year supply, homes can be approved in parts of the protected Green Belt which do not provide much of a service to the aims of said Green Belt – dubbed grey belt – such as not preventing the merging of towns or contributing to the landscape.

A number of housing applications on Green Belt plots have already been submitted to the council, arguing grey belt claims, with council officials writing “more are anticipated”.

Council officers also detail a Government ministerial statement that says authorities are prevented from refusing housing plans for more than 150 properties without ministerial approval.

They say the current batch of new applications on Green Belt plots are for that size development specifically.

This includes plans from Wheeldon Brothers for 150 homes off Bostocks Lane in Risley, next to the M1 and A52 junction.

Alongside this is a plan for 100 homes off Larch Drive in Sandiacre, submitted months after the council scrapped a plan to earmark the same plot for future development.

There is also a pending plan for 100 homes on the former Western Mere School site in Draycott Road, Breaston, which relies on the Green Belt/grey belt argument.

The same applicant makes reference to a potential further three phases including 345, 350 and 190 homes respectively – totalling 995 across the four.

Officers write: “It is therefore possible that around 1,500 dwellings could get planning permission in the Green Belt before any allocations are proposed in the Erewash New Local Plan.”