Confusion surrounds the fate of the region’s housing blueprint after a council leader insisted it could still be revived despite being declared dead in the water just days ago. West of England metro mayor Dan Norris announced last week that the spatial development strategy (SDS) had collapsed.
Labour’s Mr Norris blamed the failure on South Gloucestershire Council Conservative leader Cllr Toby Savage for “walking out” of talks on the masterplan, which sets out broad locations for tens of thousands of new homes, along with jobs, over the next 20 years. Cllr Savage denied the claims, branding them “false”, and hit back accusing the head of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) of a “desperate tactic to get his secretly developed plan approved”.
With discussions seemingly at an impasse over a proposed 37,000 homes for South Gloucestershire by 2041, Mr Norris wrote to the Government to say agreement could not be reached and all SDS work had ceased to save any more taxpayers’ money. But at a full council meeting of South Gloucestershire Council on Wednesday night (May 18), Cllr Savage said the document was not defunct just because the metro mayor said so.
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Answering a question from Lib Dem group leader Cllr Claire Young at Kingswood civic centre, he said: “There is legal uncertainty about the status of the Weca mayor’s letter to the secretary of state. The reason there is that legal uncertainty is that the requirement to produce an SDS forms part of the Weca [Devolution] Order. The legal underpinning of the combined authority sets out the requirement for an SDS.
“So we are now awaiting the response from the secretary of state on that point, and that should give us a direction of travel and clarity on this issue. But as it stands right now there is uncertainty about the status of what the Weca mayor has done.”
He said the leaders of the three councils that make up the combined authority – Bristol, Bath & North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire – had asked to see Mr Norris’s letter to the Government but it had not yet been shared with them. Tory cabinet member for regeneration, environment and strategic infrastructure Cllr Steve Reade told the meeting: “The SDS has not been withdrawn.
“The metro mayor may think he has withdrawn the SDS but he has written to a minister to declare his thoughts. It takes far more than a simple letter to withdraw an SDS.”
He said Mr Norris was causing the delay by being unwilling to engage with South Gloucestershire and also B&NES councils. “I sit on both the transport and housing boards and have repeatedly raised the point with him that we need to be operating as a combined authority,” Cllr Reade said.
Answering a written question by Lib Dem Cllr Adrian Rush, Cllr Reade said: “This administration remains supportive of a regional plan that promotes sustainable new housing, employment and infrastructure growth to meet our local needs and we have been prepared from the start to play a role in developing the SDS. This has, however, been ignored by the Weca mayor who has continued to progress it in secret.”
Thornbury Residents Against Poorly Planned Development (TRAPP’D) co-chairman Colin Gardner told the meeting he “warmly congratulated Cllr Savage on doing the right thing by putting a stop to a bad plan”. He said the SDS in its current form would have been a “disaster” for South Gloucestershire.
“Having a bad plan is much worse than not having a plan at all, and the SDS, like the rejected Joint Spatial Plan before it, was simply a bad plan,” Mr Gardner said. The blueprint was proposing 92,000 new homes for the region – 37,000 in South Gloucestershire, 40,000 in Bristol and 15,000 in B&NES – despite the Government setting a minimum housing target of 110,000.
Cllr Savage previously said he was unwilling to accept such a high number for his district because it was 9,000 more than Whitehall guidance suggested was needed. When Mr Norris announced last week that the SDS had fallen, he accused the council leader of “gambling with the green belt” by “refusing” to sign up to the joint strategy and take his “fair share” of properties.
The metro mayor warned that the region would be at the mercy of “greedy” property developers who could rely on the “presumption in favour of development”.
