Cheshire East Council leader Michael Jones today welcomed the Chancellor's announcement relaxing planning rules on brownfield sites.
In order to boost the country's house-building programme, local authorities will be required to grant automatic planning consent to developers wishing to build on brownfield land.
Brownfield sites are sites that have been previously developed before being left to stand idle such as a disused factory.
Councillor Jones said: "I welcome this announcement by George Osborne as a policy to get many acres of waste land in our towns and cities turned into decent homes.
"This will stifle the temptation for developers to attack the greenbelt with the excuse that building on the greenbelt is essential to meet housing supply targets.
"Brownfield sites are not always attractive to developers because of the cost of clean up but hopefully the removal of planning red tape will provide them with the incentive they need.
"I echo the statement by the Business Secretary that this will speed up schemes and preclude the need for building in the green belt and we in Cheshire East see ourselves as a vanguard of this new policy.
Cheshire East has 181 brownfield sites currently under construction and a further 375 sites about to be developed giving a total of 3,696 new homes.
Around 47 hectares of brown land has been identified as having development potential and the capacity for more than 1,400 new homes.
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"Mr Javid told the BBC the 141,000 new homes built last year were a fraction of those needed to meet demand.
"Local people will still have control over planning," he said.
"The point of this is to make sure we build more homes, that local people are still rightly involved in those decisions and we find ways to speed it up."
There was "no need" to build on green belt land, he insisted, to meet the government's targets."
What is constantly being overlooked by government & CEC (and other authorities) are the vast numbers of green fields developers have received planning for but have deliberately left untouched for one reason or another. These sites, their "land banks", could provide the required homes should they be developed. Developers say they would be unable to sell such homes - maybe they are right as mortgages & other finances are difficult to obtain.
And there is the heart of the problem, finance.
Meanwhile, developers seek planning on ever more sites in their desire to ravage green fields. How many of these will go into their land banks?
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodies” or as Sir Humphrey explained “If no one knows what you’re doing then no one knows what you’re doing wrong “.......( remember Lyme Green !! )
I quote.......
"I am not against sensible and meaningful development of a proportionate nature (i.e.; good design, fitting social requirements BUT NOT EVERYWHERE)"
The real meaning....
I'm happy for development across brownfield sites (that i deem to be brownfield) as long the design fits perfectly with my preconceived view of architecture....although if the development damages a single blade of grass, generates any infrastructure changes, affects my house price or adds to local population numbers then im against it! The list could go on!