Crucial changes to Core Strategy green belt development plans

Revisions of green belt boundaries in Reigate and Redhill should only happen in "exceptional" circumstances, and plans to release green belt land east of Salfords for thousands of new homes should be scrapped. Those are among the sensational recommendations of a government planning inspector who has called for Reigate and Banstead Borough Council to make changes to its controversial Core Strategy, which provides a blueprint for where thousands of new homes are built over the next 14 years. He also believes the Nork and Tattenhams area could take an "intensification" of houses, and more homes should be built there. MP Crispin Blunt called the changes an improvement, but said it still left the strategy endorsing development of the green belt - something he feels is a breach of a government policy. Plans outlined in the Core Strategy to build "urban extensions" of hundreds of new homes in green belt to the south west of Regiate and east of Redhill caused widespread alarm when they emerged earlier this year. Now, after scrutinising the Core Strategy during a two-week inquiry last month, a government planning inspector has asked the authority to make more changes. The inspector has recommended the council:

• Set out more clearly that limited revisions to the green belt boundary are acceptable only in exceptional circumstances and better explain that urban areas will be developed first
• Delete references to developing green belt land east of Salfords after 2027
• Consider building more homes in the north-west of the borough (Nork and Tattenhams area)

MP Crispin Blunt, who has declared protection of the green belt a key priority, said: "It is better than it was but it is still in principle unacceptable. It has taken the core strategy in general in a better direction, but it still includes an unacceptable breach of national green belt policy. "It is welcome that the strategy will no longer identify land east of Salfords, and it is making clearer that the urban extensions - which would be the green belt breach - are to come right at the end of the options, but, since that is still in the strategy, it is still very likely to come in." At the inspector's inquiry held at Reigate Town Hall last month, developers pushed hard to get green belt land released for bricks and mortar immediately, and called for the council's housing targets of 460 homes per year to be increased. Mike Miller, executive member for planning and development at the council welcomed the fact that the inspector had not sided with them. "We have worked hard over a number of years to achieve an adopted Core Strategy, which will give us control over where future development goes." he said. "We are now within reach of achieving that goal, and of protecting the highly valued environmental quality of the borough whilst meeting the needs of our residents. "I am pleased with how the hearings into our Core Strategy went. The inspector has not recommended any changes to our housing target of 460 homes per year, to our approach of building new homes in urban areas first and only using greenfield and green belt sites when we need to, or to our affordable housing target of 30 per cent." The council's cabinet will need to agree to consult on the changes when it meets next week. A six-week public consultation would then take place in July and August on the amendments.