The government has already declared a climate emergency. This local plan suggests that either Warrington is exempt from this emergency or is completely blinkered to the very real threat. Yet Warrington Council?s local plan issued four months later proposes a reduction of Warrington?s green belt overall by 5%. This would be an irreversible step with loss of greenbelt areas forever. Surely the council should look more closely at utilising available brown field sites in the town.
Much of the proposed development is planned for the south of the town to include erosion of the green belt for the construction of new homes. The location is far from the town?s railway stations which would result in increased car usage both in the south of the town and across the town as a whole. There are no proposals for improvement to the local infrastructure meaning that the plan will only worsen the existing problems of congestion and air quality. In simple terms the Warrington local plan which will result in a reduction of the greenbelt and increasing reliance on road traffic thereby increasing the town?s carbon footprint is
wholly inconsistent with the UK?s climate change aspiration.