Staffordshire County Council promoted farms for housing despite ‘ban’
A council continued to promote two of its farms for housing development – despite leaders saying they would stop farms being sold off.
Reform UK leaders at Staffordshire County Council announced last year they had ‘banned’ the sale of the authority’s farms, after a number were sold off by the previous Conservative administration to raise funds.
But in December the council formally opposed the removal of land including two farms from Newcastle’s local plan. The sites AB12 at Bignall End and AB33 at Audley had originally been earmarked for 180 homes in the draft local plan, but Newcastle Borough Council proposed to remove them in line with instructions from the planning inspector.
In its official response to a borough council consultation on the proposed changes, the county council argued that both sites should still be allocated for housing, saying they are essential for meeting the parish’s housing need. In relation to AB12, the county council said it believes ‘the exclusion of the site from the plan was not justified and now brings into question the soundness of the plan’.
The county council said AB12 ‘provided for a sensible rounding off of the green belt boundary’, and that the site can also deliver against all of the policy requirements for sites released from the green belt’. In relation to AB33, the council said concerns over flood risk had been ‘misrepresented’ and development could take place on the land subject to a site-specific flood risk assessment.
The county council’s consultation response was in line with its existing policy on farms, which is set to be officially changed at a cabinet meeting in March. Opposition Conservative councillors say it is ‘worrying’ that the authority is continuing to promote farmland for development despite Reform insisting they had halted the sales.
But acting county council leader Martin Murray hit back at the Tories, saying the farms at Bignall End and Audley had originally been proposed for the local plan by the last Conservative administration.
He said: “I have always been very clear that our position is that our county farms are not for sale – and next month this will be set out in the county farms policy statement for approval by cabinet.
“The local plan is a Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council document and the two areas of land in question were included following agreement by the previous county council administration. For the Conservative group to suggest otherwise in its literature is misleading.
“Both areas of land have now been removed from the plan by the borough council. We will now halt the submission of any county farms land in borough and district local plans, and there will be no future sale of such land under this administration once our new policy is approved in March.”
Councillor Catherine Brown, Conservative shadow cabinet member for communities and rural affairs, believes the consultation response undermines Reform’s position on the issue. She said: “Reform UK have made their pledge to retain all of Staffordshire’s county farms estate a cornerstone of their offer to rural communities, many of which elected Reform councillors last May.
“It is worrying therefore that the council is still trying to ensure that farm sites are kept available for future development; it seems that like a lot of other Reform UK promises, it is not necessarily one communities can rely on.”
Following the consultation, the borough council has not changed its proposal to remove AB12 and AB33 from the local plan. All consultation responses were submitted to the inspector, and a final version of the local plan is due to be adopted later this year.
