Conservatives will urge Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council members to use new powers from the coalition Government that give councils a greater say over development.
The Labour Government set strict housing targets – but the new Government says this should be left to councils to decide.
However, the Liberal Democrats and Labour, who have run the council since a May 6 election, are pressing ahead with the plans.
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Sites include Middlefield, to the back of Arden School, land off Hampton Lane to the back of Knowle CE Primary School and Four Ashes Road in Bentley Heath (see map, above).
The motion calls for councillors to ‘welcome’ the end of these targets to ensure ‘communities will now be asked to help develop planning proposals for their local neighbourhood rather than being consulted on options that have already been prepared’.
It says the council should ‘withdraw proposals to release Green Belt land for development and seek to minimise building on green field sites except where such development is supported by the local community’.
The Knowle sites are green field, land which has not previously been built on. The latest plans will be consulted on.
Conservative group leader Cllr Ken Meeson, leader of the council until May 6, welcomed the move.
He said: “They should not be going out with a lost of pre-selected sites saying ‘these are the ones we are going to develop, what do you think about it?
“Instead, they should talk to the communities and ask ‘what do you think is needed in your area by way of new developments?’”
Cllr Meeson, a member for Dorridge & Hockley Heath, said: “It is hypocrisy because the Liberal Democrats in the past have criticised building on green field sites.”
The Lib Dem’s election manifesto pledged to ‘protect green field land’.
Cllr Meeson said he was concerned about the loss of protected trees at Four Ashes Road.
He said: “I have spoken to the ward councillors and they are very unhappy, particularly the site in Hampton Lane.
“They are very unhappy about that because it just extends Knowle further out.”
He said: “It is going to have real implications for traffic round that area, it is also going to have implications for the local school.”
Cllr John Reeve, Lib Dem cabinet member for economic development and regeneration, was last night unavailable for comment.
Council leader, Lib Dem Cllr Ian Hedley said his cabinet 'welcomed localisation of decision making which will make the consultation exercise more important' in a report to be put to members tomorrow night.
The plans are for:
• 90 homes at Middlefield in Knowle, on a field to the back of Arden School, by Barton Drive .
• 100 homes on land to the back of Knowle C of E Primary School, off Hampton Lane.
• 150 homes at land off Four Ashes Road, Bentley Heath.
• 100 homes at the former Powergen offices off the Stratford Road in Shirley.
• 1,075 ‘high density’ homes in Solihull town centre.
The council has said the plans are ‘firmly focused on meeting local needs and aspirations’ and there is ‘no need to delay its progress in the light of the changing political and legislative landscape of regional and local planning’.
It said scrapping the plans would leave a ‘policy vacuum’ as developers would stand a better chance of winning appeals if councils turned down plans but did not have an alternative.
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