Erewash Housing Plan Limbo

A costly three-year wrangle over a future housing blueprint for a part of Derbyshire could see the plan scrapped, with the leadership saying they are now caught in “limbo”.

Erewash Borough Council has been aiming to adopt a mandatory future housing blueprint – dubbed the Core Strategy – to outline earmarked sites for thousands of homes up until 2040.

However, Kelly Ford, the Government planning inspector overseeing the council’s blueprint, has heavily criticised progress on the plan, saying it still has “significant shortcomings” and has now advised that it should be withdrawn altogether.

Ms Ford says that should the council not push for withdrawal – which would be a matter for Steve Reed the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government – to decide, then she would be recommending that the scheme is “unsound” and should not be “adopted”.

The plan has now been delayed so long that it has had to have its timeline extended from 2037 to 2040, while housing targets have also been drastically increased due to national policy changes.

Government officials have been examining the Core Strategy now for three years and much of the supporting evidence supported by the council, developers and other authorities is now ageing, Ms Ford highlights.

In Erewash, the borough 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.

Whilst the plan has been debated, an earmarked site for 259 homes next to  Spondon Wood, abutting the border with Derby, has been submitted by developers and approved by the council.

Campaigners fear this will continue as the delay for an up-to-date plan continues, on earmarked and un-earmarked sites.

Cllr Wayne Major, Conservative opposition leader, said it was clear the council “had not done its homework”.

He said: “The letter from the planning inspector is a wake-up call. The council’s flawed approach to the Green Belt is unacceptable and puts our most precious landscapes at risk. 

“We need a plan that delivers homes in the right places without destroying the countryside that makes Erewash special. 

“The Conservatives continue to fight for a strategy that protects our Green Belt.”

Cllr James Dawson, Labour leader of the borough council, said: “We cannot withdraw without the Secretary of State’s approval so it rests completely with them.