76,000 housing shortfall in Birmingham and the Black Country highlighted in report to West Midlands Combined Authority

Members of the West Midlands Combined Authority Board (WMCA) agreed to initiate the first stage of creating a Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) for the region.

The strategy will see the main seven WMCA local authorities, as well as neighbouring ones, work together on housing and commercial growth while integrating transport, energy and social infrastructure to the schemes.

It is aimed at giving confidence to public and private investors of housing and commercial schemes.

A report to the Board said there is a predicted shortfall of 76,000 homes by 2042 in the Greater Birmingham and Black Country Housing Market Area.

Planning officers from across the region have devised a series of principles that will underpin the SDS as it is developed.

These include all councils working as equal partners, setting firm timelines for milestones, making sure all growth plans are supported by necessary infrastructure and having a brownfield first approach.

They also said the SDS must enhance the functions of green spaces in the region and prevent urban sprawl and the merger of towns.

It is expected to take around three years to fully develop an SDS for the West Midlands.

WMCA interim chief executive Ed Cox said: “This is an incredibly important process.

“This alongside our Growth Plan is going to be absolutely critical in driving the growth ambitions that we all have for the West Midlands.”

Councillor Ian Courts, deputy leader of Solihull Council, said: “You can do development right and you can do it wrong.

“You can do it in a way where people say ‘I want that’ or you can do it in a way they say ‘I don’t want it near here’.

“Half of our NIMBY-ism we see around is all about bad development rather than anything else.

“This is integral to our growth ambitions in the West Midlands. You can’t have growth in industry without housing – you need all these things linked together.

“Do we want to maintain and promote this region as one where people want to invest?

“We will do that if we ensure this brings about principles that will make this region a better place to invest in.

“We have gone wrong so often over the years under the many Governments because we’ve had rhetoric but when it comes down to the ground level, we know what we’re getting.

“We’re going to get developer’s boxes and they’re not going to be very nice.

“Good development can be attractive and appeal. We need to make the proposals here help us create a region we can all be proud of and, more to the point, people will want to come and invest in.”