Leader 'extremely angry' after government demands hundreds of extra homes a year from Shropshire Council

Announcing a shake-up of planning policy, government minister Matthew Pennycook last week urged local councils to "exhaust all your options" to meet Labour's house-building demands.

It comes after the government said councils should consider releasing the "right parts" of protected greenbelt land for development.

Under the demands the number of houses required to be built per year in the Shropshire Council area is set to increase from 1,070 to 1,994.

Shropshire Council's Conservative leader, Councillor Lezley Picton, has voiced her frustration at the situation - asking why rural areas should have to pick up the slack for urban areas.

She said the council was already looking to bring in a significant increase in the number of homes built each year as part of its fresh - but as yet delayed - local plan.

Those proposals, which were put on hold by planning inspectors last month, propose increasing the number of homes built by the council from 1,070 to 1,450 - still substantially lower than new government targets.

She has also questioned the government's move to revamp how planning committees approve applications - with a move towards more delegated decisions, which are never considered by a planning committee.

Councillor Picton said: "I am extremely angry that despite a robust response from Shropshire Council, town and parish councils and residents across Shropshire, the latest release of information indicates a significant increase to our housing targets.

"Shropshire has consistently achieved housing targets laid down by previous governments.

"To put the increase in numbers into perspective we were required to build 1,070 homes on an annual basis, our draft Local Plan has a target of 1,450 but the new proposals are setting the requirement at 1,994 per annum.

"Why should rural England be expected to build the houses that the major cities cannot bring themselves to build?"

Councillor Picton said that she feared changes to the way applications are decided would remove the voice of local people from the planning process.

She said: "Why should local communities lose their voice in the planning process as another proposed change is that the vast majority of applications will be dealt with without any democratic involvement."

She added: "The changes to the NPPF will make demonstrating sufficient housing supply by local authorities almost impossible (no matter what is actually delivered), thus opening up green fields and even the green belt to development, regardless of local views.

"This government talks of devolution but all I am seeing is centralisation and the eradication of local democracy."

When it announced the plans Labour said it would "tackle the dire inheritance faced by the government, in which 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists and a record number of households – including 160,000 children – are living in temporary accommodation".

A statement published by the government announcing the decision said: "The government is today turbocharging growth with new, mandatory targets for councils to ramp up housebuilding across the country. The planning overhaul is set to tackle the chronic housing crisis once and for all and will mean hard graft at work will be rewarded with security at home."

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer added: "For far too long, working people graft hard but are denied the security of owning their own home. I know how important it is - our pebble dash semi meant everything to our family growing up. But with a generation of young people whose dream of homeownership feels like a distant reality, and record levels of homelessness, there’s no shying away from the housing crisis we have inherited.

“We owe it to those working families to take urgent action, and that is what this government is doing. Our Plan for Change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people’s pockets.

“We’re taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people.”