Green belt sites set to come under development spotlight as Shropshire Council approves hunt for 1,500 new homes

The move, which could have serious implications for the areas around Shifnal, Albrighton and Tong, comes as Shropshire Council looks to salvage its local plan.

Today Shropshire Council's cabinet has approved the authority's response to planning inspectors assessing the proposal.

The inspectors had raised significant concerns over the council's plan, throwing the vital process into chaos.

They warned that the plan may even need to be scrapped if the council is not able to address the issues.

The local plan is one of the most important documents any council produces - setting out where houses and business developments can be built for every town and village within its boundaries.

Without an up-to-date local plan developers are more likely to be successful with 'speculative' applications for sites.

The cabinet has agreed a response to the inspectors' concerns, setting out how they accept a number of issues but reject others.

The council will now face an anxious wait to see whether the inspectors accept the offer of compromise - or whether they face the process being scrapped altogether.

Amongst the offers from the council is a plan to look for specific sites in the east of the county for 1,500 new homes and three hectares of employment land.

That could bring a number of sites in the east of the county into play, around Shifnal, Albrighton, and Tong.

The council has previously resisted two major bids for large developments in the area, and those are now likely to be back under consideration.

The authority will also tell inspectors it intends to find a new employment site for Shrewsbury, after it scrapped a previous plan for a 45 hectare employment site to the west of the A49.

During the cabinet discussion on the response joint leader of the council's Lib Dem opposition, Councillor Roger Evans said it was vital that the local plan was completed and adopted.

He urged the council to ensure resources are made available to complete the work required if the inspectors agree.

He said: "The information given out by the planning inspectors is not good news for Shropshire, not good news for the council, and also for residents."

He added: "Really, really it needs us all to coordinate together and promote this and get it to work and I would appeal to those who make it possible, we need to make sure the team has the capacity to do it.

"All the communities, if we are not careful, will have housing developments on their doorstep."

Councillor Celia Motley criticised the inspectors' delay in explaining their concerns.

A holding letter was issued on October 29 last year, before the full reasons were only explained in a letter in early January.

Councillor Motley said: "We were advised in October they did not want us to proceed further with the local plan. We expressed surprise and it took them ten weeks to come back to us."

Council leader Lezley Picton said that the 'conspiracy theorist' in her believed the delay was waiting for the publication of new government housing targets - which have nearly doubled the amount Shropshire needs to build every year.

She said: "We received a letter from them saying they had concerns then it took them 12 weeks to say what the concerns were.

"The conspiracy theorist in me might say they were waiting for the NPPF to drop first."