HBF angered by lack of public consultation on South East’s new towns
Amber Rose and Mark Cooper
A row has broken out over the location of proposed new towns in the South East.
Options are being lined up, but planners are refusing to confirm which sites have been considered.
Peter Court, South East planner for the House-Builders Federation, said the situation “makes a mockery of the strategy and the public inquiry. The South East Regional Planning Conference is prepared to discuss these matters in private but not in public.”
Sites that SERPLAN has considered are believed to include: the Horsham/Crawley area near Gatwick Airport; the Stansted/Bishop’s Stortford area around Stansted Airport; Ashford in Kent; Aylesbury Vale; Chelmsford; South Surrey; and an expansion of Milton Keynes.
Although SERPLAN has refused to debate potential sitesin public, it has been discussing options privately. It has said it is prepared to meet the Government Office for the South East to discuss the matter.
Chris Williams of SERPLAN said: “The list is total fabrication. For example, a new town in Surrey would have to be built on green belt land and SERPLAN would not release green belt land.
SERPLAN has looked at the possibilities of new towns with 100,000-plus dwellings and we have written to the GOSE and said we would like to identify potential sites and evaluate them, but we are not prepared to divulge the sites we have considered for new towns.”
SERPLAN has said that any new town would need 100,000 homes to be self-sufficient and would be “employment-led”.
