Green belt housing plans would push region's infrastructure 'past tipping point', MP warns
Green belt housing plans for the Black Country could push the region's infrastructure "past a tipping point", an MP has warned.
Suzanne Webb said plans to build thousands of homes across the region would lead to "urban sprawl" and pile pressure on roads and services such as doctors surgeries and schools.
The Stourbridge MP has lodged her opposition to the Black Country Plan, which outlines plans for thousands of homes on green belt sites across the four boroughs.
It came as opposition to the plan continued to gather pace, with the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) calling for 25 sites to be removed as part of a renewed focus on brownfield development.
Responding to a consultation into the plan, Mrs Webb urged councils to scrap "unnecessary" proposals to build on the green belt and other much-loved green spaces in communities.
She said more work needed to be done to identify "grossly underused" brownfield sites that could be used for housing, and warned about the dangers of "urban sprawl" that green belt development would cause.
"“Services are under pressure in and around Stourbridge, so much so that any increase in population could push at-risk infrastructure past a tipping point," she said.
In her letter Mrs Webb opposed proposals for 90 homes at Wollaston Farm and 115 homes off Worcester Lane, Pedmore.
She said both sites were "much loved" green spaces that made a huge difference to residents' lives.
"The Wollaston site is a green oasis in an otherwise built-up area," the MP added. "To build here would be to remove access to rare green space in a heavily residential area.
“In Pedmore, the sites enhance the character of the area."
Meanwhile West Midland Bird Club has lodged its opposition to plans for a sprawling housing estate on land off Doe Bank Lane in Pheasey, saying development would destroy the habitat of a number of under threat bird species.
The club says the site performs an "important ecological corridor" between Walsall's green belt and Sutton Park national nature reserve, and that any development would "cause significant damage" to the area.
