Cllr Mark Hunter has written the below in response to an open letter from the Conservative Councillor on Stockport Council:
Cllr Crossen,
Thank you for your email. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that you choose to ignore reality whilst writing a letter clearly intended more for voters’ eyes than for mine.
As you should be well aware, Stockport councillors – including Conservative councillors who have since lost their seats – voted to leave the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework at the end of 2020, with a view to protecting our Green Belt. It was the right decision.
That was under a local Labour administration that did not then do enough to draft and adopt a Local Plan, and they left it to the Liberal Democrats to pick up the pieces when we regained minority control of the council three years ago, at the end of May 2022. Since that time we have taken and continue to take senior legal advice at each stage on the most appropriate way forwards.
You will recall that the summer of 2022 was particularly special for the Conservative party. Boris Johnson had to resign as Prime Minister, Liz Truss briefly replaced him, crashed our economy and was eventually replaced in turn by Rishi Sunak.
During that chaotic time there was much speculation during the leadership campaigns about changing the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and about making the then compulsory housing targets only advisory. As this change would enable us follow through on our ambition to protect our precious Green Belt, the new Cabinet under my leadership took the decision to pause work, avoiding an expensive consultation on a Local Plan that might be out of date before the consultation was complete. This saved our hard-pressed Council Tax payers around £0.25m according to an official estimate. The Conservative government confirmed at the end of 2022 that this would happen, and a new NPPF was expected to be published in the Spring of 2023.
Sadly, Michael Gove as Secretary of State chose instead to take a year to issue a revised NPPF, and it was late December 2023 before this was published. We re-commenced work immediately under this new guidance and, despite being forced to pause announcements due to the pre-election periods for the Local Elections and then General Election in 2024, we did publish a draft Local Plan back in July 2024.
It can be found here:
Agenda for Cabinet on Friday, 19th July, 2024, 12.00 pm – Stockport Council
This focussed on Brownfield first development, protecting our Green Belt as we have always aimed.
Shortly after publishing that draft Local Plan, the new Labour government announced the planning rules would be altered again, entirely changing the game with their 10 million homes housing ambition and strictly enforced, compulsory housing targets. We were forced to wait for yet another update to the NPPF by central government.
Our Local Development Scheme was published within days of Labour finally issuing the updated National Planning Policy Framework, showing how we would deliver a Local Plan to the government’s deadline. A key matter remained unresolved, however – what did the compulsory targets mean in places like Stockport where such huge housing numbers could only be delivered through the release of Green Belt. This would apparently involving a new classification of land called “Grey Belt”. All Local Plans under the previous rules not yet at Regulation 19 Consultation were to be abandoned and the new rules used instead.
Sadly, but unsurprisingly given our experience to date, the government then delayed issuing the clarity and guidance on Grey Belt/Green Belt for months. When it eventually came, the guidance was completely out of line with what the planning community had expected. Our consultants are currently working through what this means for Stockport. This government delay will have a knock on to all councils and their preparation of Local Plans.
We continue to urgently progress our Local Plan but it will now be even more difficult protect the Green Belt our residents rightly cherish. Overnight, Angela Rayner’s compulsory housing target removed our ability to defend such land from the clutches of developers who are intent on concreting over it, in the pursuit of profit.
Labour’s new rules will make it much easier for them to build there. Unlike the draft Local Plan the Lib Dems published last summer, which would have built the right homes in the right places, but which we were blocked from progressing.
I hope this clarifies the fact that the Liberal Democrats have not been dragging our heels, on the contrary we have been keen to make progress and have been repeatedly frustrated by changes in government policy.
We hope you will join our calls to government to overturn the approach taken by both the current Labour government and its Conservative predecessors, who have given all of the power to developers whilst tying councils’ hands behind their backs at the expense of our valuable Green Belt.
