Green areas swallowed up to hit housing targets
Six rural sites near Birmingham earmarked for new homes
THE West Midlands is set to undergo huge investment and growth in the coming years, with regeneration schemes, infrastructure projects like HS2 and the Commonwealth Games all playing a part.
The demand for homes in certain areas will become more pressing and parts of the countryside around Birmingham and the wider Midlands could be transformed as local authorities look to meet their housing targets.
Thousands of homes and new communities could be built in green spaces across the region, from the Black Country to Worcestershire, if certain proposals are given the green light in the near future.
The Post has rounded up some of the sites in the rural areas that are currently earmarked for development.
Such proposals are sometimes met with fierce backlash from residents, as seen in the controversy surrounding the plans for Calderfields West in Walsall and the huge ‘garden village’ planned for rural Solihull.
➤ Langley development in Sutton Coldfield
A huge housing development on a swathe of former Birmingham green belt land recently moved a step closer. The Langley Sutton Coldfield Consortium – a group of developers and landowners – submitted an outline planning application for permission to build 5,500 homes on the Langley site neighbouring Walmley in Sutton Coldfield.
It comes almost five years after Birmingham City Council adopted its Birmingham Development plan, releasing the town’s green belt for development.
It is the initial stage in the planning process which, if granted, will lead to individual applications detailing the precise homes, shops, schools, medical centres and leisure facilities which will be built.
Notably, the new development will be mainly made up of family homes – with 40 to 50 per cent set to be threebed, and 25 to 35 per cent four-bed or larger with the remainder one or twobed homes.
Fulford Green in Solihull
➤
Proposals for a huge ‘garden village’ in rural Solihull, christened Fulford Green, were unveiled last year.
A statement on its website said: “We are in the early stages of developing a vision to create a genuinely sustainable garden village with approximately 1,800 homes of different types and tenures, a new high street for local people and entrepreneurs,
a primary school and new public parkland serving existing and new communities.” The development would lie north west of Earlswood Lakes and to the south of Tidbury Green. Critics previously said the scheme had caused considerable alarm in a part of the borough where there are already fears about disappearing countryside and existing villages merging together.
Calderfields West in Walsall
➤
Green Belt land next to Walsall’s premier park is currently earmarked for development, with 592 homes potentially being built under the proposed Black Country Plan.
However, residents living near the Calderfields West spot are fighting the proposals, saying the land is too valuable to lose and said that they will lobby the local authority to get it removed from the plan.
One campaigner said: “Walsall
Arboretum is used by a million visitors a year and this view just lends itself to the health and well-being of people of Walsall. It is too important to sacrifice when we can use brownfield sites.”
Woven Oaks in Kidderminster
➤
More than 1,000 new homes, a primary school and doctor’s surgery could be built in Kidderminster as part of a huge new development. The proposed community, named Woven Oaks, would be located in the east of the town, just off Comberton Road.
In total, 1,400 new homes would be constructed as well as several facilities such as a new community hall and extensive green space. Developer Taylor Wimpey, who are behind the colossal project, launched an online publication consultation last year before a planning application was submitted.
Mappleborough Green, Redditch
➤
Morris Homes has put forward plans to build a new housing estate featuring 236 homes on land located just off Far Moor Lane, which separates Winyates Green and Mappleborough Green. The cross boundary development between the Redditch and Stratford districts has been named ‘Mappleborough Woods’. The application is currently being decided on by Redditch Borough Council.
Chateau Impney in Droitwich
➤
Nearly 200 homes will be built in the grounds of one of Worcestershire’s most iconic buildings.
Plans are being drawn up for the future of Chateau Impney Hotel and Conference Centre in Droitwich.
The venue closed last year due to the pandemic, but now new plans have been submitted to revive it. Proposals include keeping it as a hospitality venue, but also building up to a new village in its parklands and grounds.
If approved, this will be the latest chapter in the Grade II-listed building’s long and varied history, which has included being a wedding venue, luxury hotel and also a prisoner of war camp.