New delay puts green belt plans back to the autumn
GREATER Manchester’s contentious green belt plans are to be delayed again, this time until the autumn.
New population forecasts released by the Office for National Statistics project lower growth than local leaders had originally envisaged which could in turn mean the region needs to build fewer houses in the long term.
As a result the blueprint is now set to be delayed for the third time.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has insisted it is not ‘a mess’ or ‘going wrong’, stressing that officials need time to take account of the new projected figures.
The original draft of the ‘spatial framework’ which aims to map out enough housing and employment space for the next 20 years - had already been scrapped by Mr Burnham last year for a ‘radical’ rewrite, after the first draft sparked outrage for earmarking extensive swathes of green belt for development.
A rewritten version was then scheduled for this month, although some council leaders had wanted it done more quickly.
It was then pushed back to July, partly as a result of the change of leadership within Trafford following the local elections, during which green belt development had been a particularly hot topic.
But speaking at his monthly ‘question time’ event, Mr Burnham said it would be ‘daft’ to publish as intended next month if new figures now suggest a change in the number of houses is required.
“About two weeks ago the ONS issued new figures around population growth and therefore housing growth and they have revised it downwards,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody in Greater Manchester would thank me for just ignoring that and ploughing on with the old figures.
“In my view it’s always right to take our time to get this plan right, because we are going to be stuck with it a long time when it gets agreed, if and when it gets agreed - I hope it will be.”
Adding that council leaders will have a public debate on the issue at tomorrow’s monthly combined authority meeting, he said he would be personally be arguing for a delay until ‘probably September’.
“I will actually from the chair be saying we should delay, because we have got new figures that take our housing need down,” he said.
“It would be pretty daft, it seems to me, for us to say ‘no, we said July’. Personally I think that isn’t a sensible thing to do.”
Greater Manchester officials had, until now, been working to a projected housing need of around 220,000 new homes over two decades, based on the government’s own formula - with an expectation that even under the rewritten proposals, some of those would need to go on green belt.
The latest lower-thanexpected ONS population figures will feed into a second set of national forecasts due in September, which will help form the basis of the revised blueprint. Some council figures have had concerns for some time that the plan has been drifting, however, but Mr Burnham denied it was in trouble.
“We have got people saying ‘oh you keep moving it, what’s going wrong?’,” he said. “And then some people might say ‘another delay looks like it’s a mess’. It isn’t a mess, actually. I understand why people might say that, but it’s not that. It’s simply that these new figures arrived a couple of weeks ago.”
Over the next month officials will look to draw up a new timeline - incorporating a 12-week public consultation - for the blueprint, although it is understood the combined authority is still aiming to submit it to government by the end of 2019.