Green Belt use ‘last resort’
● HALTON Borough Council has admitted the use of Green Belt land for housing is a ‘last resort’ amid opposition to potentially more than 1,700 homes being built in a Widnes neighbourhood.
The Weekly News reported last week that proposals under the draft Local Plan for developments in Halebank had been branded as ‘beyond belief’.
Halebank Parish Council chairman Colin Rowan said 1,770 homes are envisaged for the area and that the plans involved ‘sweeping aside’ Green Belt.
The homes could be constructed in the Halebank Road and Hale Gate Road areas.
Mr Rowan said: “The whole scenario is beyond belief that this should be even thought of.
“1,770 houses, by a normal explanation, would mean there is going to be 3,500 plus adults living in those premises, plus children.
“When you consider every house has one car, the majority have two, the impact of vehicle traffic within Halebank is going to be absolutely enormous.
“The roads have difficulty taking the amount of traffic as it is today. The extra houses would saturate the area, plus you would need a school or even two schools.
“You’ve got to consider the other side of the infrastructure – leisure, shopping, possibility of a church, the building of roads.
“When you consider the infrastructure that would need to be implemented it is absolutely huge and should obviously be put in place prior to any building.”
Mr Rowan also claimed the 1,770 homes are 50% of what Halton Borough Council say are to be built in Widnes and added ‘90%’ of Halebank residents are opposed to the proposals.
The local authority has said the borough’s last Local Plan was last approved in 2005 and needs updating every 12 years.
A council spokeswoman said 10,700 new homes need to be built in Runcorn and Widnes and the ‘majority’ of these will be for ‘ local people’.
The spokeswoman said: “The council does not want to use Green Belt. This open land is important, both as a resource and so Halton keeps its identity and does not merge with surrounding towns.
“The use of Green Belt is a last resort. We use brownfield sites and remediate as much as possible, but this is not enough land to meet our housing needs.
“When the map of Halton’s area is viewed, it is possible to see that the only way Halton can meet its needs is to grow into the Green Belt.
“Balancing these two factors is a really difficult problem to solve.”
The spokeswoman said the first draft is the ‘early stages of quite a long process’ and that the consultation process – which runs until Thursday, February 15 – is the opportunity for people to offer their views to help shape the next blueprint.
She added: “Local authorities must follow the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework which makes it clear that the Local Plan should be based on a minimum 15 year period and an up to date, objective assessment of housing need across the borough.
“Having done this, we need to build 10,700 new homes, the majority of which will be for local people.
“It is not just about population growth, the numbers of individual households are growing and people are changing the way houses are occupied – trends show people are staying single for longer and living longer.”