11 September 2013
St.Helens Council is preparing an Allocations and Sustainable Development Local Plan which will identify where new housing, employment and other significant development will be placed, together with sites that should be protected against development. St Helens Green Party, whilst not wishing to make comments on specific sites, makes the following general points.
There is a limited supply of land. We are custodians of the land for future generations.
Whilst we welcome suggestions for the redevelopment of brownfield sites and alternative uses for them from within the local community, we believe that few people are likely to nominate existing Green Belt sites for development other than landowners or others with a vested financial interest.
We believe that brownfield sites should be used in preference to greenfield sites. If former industrial sites are deemed unsuitable for industrial development because they are deemed to be too close to housing, then they should be put to an alternative use, whether housing, public or commercial, rather than greenfield sites being used. The re-use of derelict sites would also enhance the quality of life of people in the surrounding area.
Although the cost of remediation of formerly used sites may be greater than of developing virgin land, developers should be deterred from development on greenfield sites. The North West is densely populated, so greenfield land should be valued highly from a life quality and biodiversity perspective. High quality agricultural land, vital at a time of a growing national and world population, woodland and public open spaces should be protected from development. Where land is removed from the Green Belt and allocated for development it should be used incrementally from the existing urban area outwards, so that productive land not to be built on in the short term is not sterilised from an agricultural perspective, and existing infrastructure may be utilised.
Where there is industrial development, warehouse and storage projects, which have a huge land take yet yield few jobs, should be discouraged in favour of more labour intensive-industry.
Whilst the government may require the Council to take more land out of the existing Green Belt than it requires for the next local plan, so that a Green Belt review will not be necessary at the expiry of that plan, any undeveloped greenfield sites at the end of the new plan should be carried forward to the following plan, in order to reduce the amount of land required to be removed from the Green Belt under future plans.
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