Councillors have agreed to lobby the Welsh Government for a second time to suspend a policy which they say is undermining the democratic planning process.
Under Welsh Government rules, local authorities in Wales have to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply. Currently in Caerphilly County Borough there is a housing land supply for the next 1.5 years.
As it stands, planning applications for housing developments that are turned down by the council are likely to get the go-ahead on appeal because of a lack of an up-to-date Local Development Plan with a five-year housing land supply.
Referring to other recent decisions by the Welsh Government to overturn planning applications, Plaid Cymru group leader Colin Mann proposed the council motion calling on the Welsh Government to suspend its policy.
At a full council meeting on Tuesday, November 21, said: “We just can’t carry on in this sort of way.
“I think we have got to keep the pressure up in any way that we can.”
Blackwood independent councillor Nigel Dix agreed and said: “We’re in a process now where the democratic process is being usurped by decisions made in Cardiff.
“The people who come down to make these decisions in the appeals have no local knowledge at all. They look at dry statistics and they make a decision based on the procedure before them.”
Last month the council agreed to write to Lesley Griffiths, the Welsh Government secretary responsible for planning, calling for the suspension. There has yet to be a reply.
The council’s corporate director of communities Christina Harrhy told councillors that officials were continuing dialogue with Welsh Government civil servants on the issue.
Blackwood independent councillor Kevin Etheridge tabled an amendment for a delegation of councillors to meet with Lesley Griffiths in person to discuss the issue.
Councillors agreed, on the suggestion of Labour’s council leader Dave Poole, that if no reply had been received from Ms Griffiths by mid December then efforts would be made to arrange a meeting.
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “All local authorities in Wales are required to have an adopted and up to date Local Development Plan. They must also maintain a five-year land supply for new housing.
“Together, these ensure the appropriate amount of new housing in the right locations is provided. Unfortunately, Caerphilly Council does not have a five-year land supply for housing and stopped work on a new LDP last year. These are matters for the council to address.”
Just another example of the Welsh Assembly’s incompetence. They make every decision on a box ticking exercise rather than an examination of facts. This sorry institution has had its day and should be abolished.
Yes, it’s just another incompetent and unnecessary tier of government – and a very expensive one at that.
Very true and now we can also see that it is costing us our green spaces and quality of life as well as being a financial burden to Welsh people.
The welsh government is labour run.
Labour are pro mass immigration.
The SE of England is full.
There are ten in the bed and the little one said roll over.
Labour are going to overrule any local decision throughout the nation that they can in order to facilitate mass immigration and ease the burden on the SE of England. Anything that softens any argument against open borders is going to be pushed through with zeal often at the expense of its sheep like voters.
The working class voting for labour is like the turkey that votes for Christmas to be brought forward by a month.
If there weren’t 350k people coming here a year we would not need the suggested 200k new builds every year. Supply has been kept artificially low for decades in order to keep prices high in order to maintain a tax base from house sales because taxes from pay have plummeted. Introduce hundreds of thousands of new people to the country and its possible to get tax from them and their house purchases (or the knock on effect of them buying low value properties pushing up the price of other properties).
In short, labour are agenda driven against the British people.
Do not vote against your own interests, do not vote for labour!
Pete I agree with your assessment of the problem – too many people entering the country. I am always amazed by politicians who laud massive immigration as beneficial. The usual line of patter is that we need these extra people beacuse there is a demand for workers and the population is ageing.
I question this, if we are short of workers why are there so many young unemployed? Do the immigrant workers all go back to their country of origin when they retire or do they stay to add millions to pensioner numbers?
The problem is the mindset of the major parties, Conservative, Labour and Lib Dems is fixed at around 1914 and cannot visualise a high tec Britain with a declining birhrate and population. We do not need masses of young people to fight the First World War or work in labour intensive industries. What we need is fewer people which will provide more living space, cheaper homes, better productivity from utilisation of technology, an improvement of the quality of life, less road congestion, less pollution, higher wages, I could go on.
I am not anti immigrant and consider the colour of a person’s skin to be irrelevant but we, as a country, should only allow people in on the basis of need. Which is what most countries around the world do. We do not need tens of thousands of crop pickers, cleaners, nurses, plumbers, painters and electricians. We could train our own, we used to do this just a few years ago.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Make it difficult for people to sit at home and claim dole for more than a couple of months and they will turn to work or crime.
Flood the streets with police who actually police the streets and not act like modern day bow street runners, and a make crime difficult.
Result: You force peoples hand toward self sufficiency, dignity and pride of work. You won’t need 350k slave labourers a year entering the country forcing wages down.
You give recent migrants time and opportunity to assimilate.
These are radical ideas but when your country is in a state of managed decline you’ve no option but to wield the club.
The Torres only have one more turn in them and they will be out for a decade so a bit of bravery now will pay dividends way into the future especially if they make their decisions as irreversible as possible. They should of learnt that last trick from Tony B liar.