Green belt fight may go to the High Court (From Bournemouth Echo)

Green belt fight may go to the High Court

7:00am Tuesday 21st April 2009 in Search By Steven Smith

THE fight against green belt development in Dorset could go all the way to the High Court.

Government plans to build 48,100 new homes in the county by 2026 have met with widespread opposition and now one councillor is looking to make sure the fight goes on.

Cllr Susan Jefferies will table a motion at the next county cabinet meeting tomorrow asking her colleagues to pledge to look at mounting a challenge via judicial review if the government presses on with the plans.

Hazel Blears, secretary of state for communities and local government, is due to come back with a decision on the South West Regional Spatial Strategy at the end of June.

Cllr Jefferies said: “It’s looking after our backs because the preparations for a judicial review take time. You only have six weeks. I do believe that the council is preparing anyway, but I want public assurance that they are.”

Annette Brooke, MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, added: “If we do get bad news then I think it’s the only way forward and I think it’s good to put a marker down and seek cross-party support that that is what they’re going to do. Obviously they have got to take advice, because undue risks with taxpayers’ money cannot be taken.”

The plans would practically end Bournemouth’s green belt, with 1,500 extra homes, while land near Lytchett Minster would get 2,750.

Sites at West Parley, Corfe Mullen and Wimborne would be heavily affected, with 2,400 dwellings. Those against the plans say Dorset’s infrastructure cannot cope with the numbers.

District councillor for Corfe Mullen, Cllr Anne Holland, said she was presenting the same motion to East Dorset District Council to see if the council was “serious” in its stated opposition to 2,400 homes on green belt land at Colehill, Corfe Mullen, and West Parley.

A communities and local government spokesman would not comment on potential court action but said the south west was facing long-term housing shortages and, if the problem was left unaddressed, the next generation would have nowhere to live.