St. Helens Council admit there is enough Brownfield sites

The chief executive of St Helens Council has revealed changes are being made to its hugely controversial Local Plan.

Council boss Mike Palin has told green belt campaign groups that additional brownfield sites for housing development have been identified and will be included in the revised plan when it is published later this year.

Campaigners have welcomed the news but say the council should have done a full audit of brownfield land in the borough before publishing the St Helens Local Plan in the first place.

A number of St Helens campaign groups wrote to Mr Palin asking for a clarification on several points regarding housing development on the green belt, which has generated widespread opposition throughout the borough.

In an email response, Mr Palin revealed there are “a couple of large brownfield sites being proposed by landowners that had not previously been submitted”.

He also said “the next iteration of the Local Plan will be different to the Preferred Options version”. The Preferred Options were published just before Christmas 2016. The next version of the plan is due to be published in the summer.

Although pleased the plan will be changed and new brown field sites are being considered, campaigners say the Local Plan is in “chaos” and the council has “squandered” more than £200,000 of public money.

St Helens Council revealed it has spent more than £212,564 to date on outside companies, such as consultants and legal advisers, who helped them produce the Local Plan. That figure does not include internal costs.

Mr Palin did not reveal where these new brownfield sites are located, how many houses could be built on them or why the land wasn’t included in earlier versions of the plan.

This apparent late discovery of new brownfield land suggests the council didn’t do adequate searches while producing the Local Plan Preferred Options, say campaigners.

The council has recently admitted it has yet to ask public bodies and utility companies if they have any brownfield land in St Helens borough that could be used for housing development.

Campaigners say these checks should have been completed before any plans were made to build on the green belt.

John Fairclough, of Residents Against the Development of Green Belt in Rainhill, said: “The St Helens Local Plan has descended into chaos. The council’s failure to properly check what brownfield and greenfield land is available in the borough before coming forward with plans to bulldoze our green belt is a total disgrace.

“We have always said the council’s claim brown field land is running out in St Helens borough is ludicrous. And now, out of thin air, the council has found additional brown field sites for housing, proving we were right all along.“The council must produce a comprehensive and complete brown field register immediately and ensure it has exhausted every alternative possibility before any building takes place on the green belt.”

Mike Greenacre, of Windle and Eccleston Community Residents Association, said: “The Local Plan the council put before the public at Christmas clearly wasn’t fit for purpose. The £200,000 of public money the council has spent so far on this process, just on external advice, has clearly been squandered.“We should at least be grateful that at long last the council appears to be listening to the people they are supposed to serve. However, the devil will be in the detail. So before we get our hopes up we will wait to see what changes the council comes forward with at the next stage of their Local Plan.“We are optimistic now that it will be different to what they originally produced, which was little more than a charter for builders to destroy the St Helens countryside so many of us love.”

James Wright, chair of Rainford Action Group, said: “We always suspected the council would revise down its plans for green belt development to make its final proposals appear more acceptable to the public.“Our position is unchanged. We are against any green belt development until every available brown field site has been used, there is a clear and effective plan to bring back into use the more than 3,500 empty properties in St Helens, and the 2,000 properties across the borough that have been granted planning permission but currently yet to be built are fully completed.”