UPSVLP 2336
Green Belt Assessment
Removing land from the Green Belt to allow a developer to be granted planning consent and obtain a windfall profit from the uplift in land value does not fall within the definition of ?exceptional circumstances? as required by the in the NPPF and any such change would likely lead to a judicial review of any such decision.
The removal of land from the Green Belt, in particular area marked R18/088 which is part of area 11 in the Arup General Assessment (GA) and secondly, the route of the proposed infrastructure link road from the A49 to Stretton Road.
In the event that R18/088 is still to be removed from the Green Belt, as a compromise it is suggested that it only applies to R18/088 East and that R18//088 West remains within the Green Belt.
The removal of land within the Green Belt for Residential development should be a last resort and, as the Prime Minister recently reported in Parliament, only when, other non-Green Belt sites have been developed. In this instance, bearing in mind the low rate of new housing within non-Green Belt and other brownfield sites removing site R18/088 at this juncture is unjustified. Funding for infrastructure such as the A49-Stretton link road should be paid from the previous and future release of huge amounts of land by Homes England in south Warrington which will produce more than sufficient profit.
The report concludes that the durable boundary near to Stretton should be the M56 but this appears to be inconsistent not only with previous Green Belt reviews but also with other durable areas in the report and the NPPF & Planning Guidance Service (PAS) guidelines.