COUNCIL bosses have agreed to scrap years of planning for Wrexham’s future and will now go back to the drawing board.
The crunch decision came after the Cardiff-based Planning Inspectorate Wales demanded more than 3,500 extra homes be built in Wrexham by 2021.
At a meeting of council bosses yesterday, councillors expressed their frustration in what Cllr Rodney Skelland called “a case of virtually starting again” on Wrexham’s Local Development Plan (LDP).
Members expect Inspector Hywel Jones to suggest the plan is suspended or withdrawn at a meeting tomorrow, which could put planning in Wrexham back two years.
Fellow executive board member Cllr Alun Jenkins said: “It’s like a builder coming to your house to put the last slate on the roof and saying ‘No, I don’t like that. There’s something wrong with the foundation’.”
The plan had been through a good consultation process, he said. “The public have been involved, the members have been involved, we’ve done what the people of Wrexham wanted us to do and now someone has come in from the outside and said it’s not good enough.”
The new LDP was supposed to dictate the future use of land and buildings in the county borough. It has been years in development.
But a final review by the Planning Inspectorate Wales was halted after just six sessions earlier this month.
The inspector sent a letter to Wrexham Council saying he had fundamental concerns about the LDP and the target of 8,000 homes was not enough. It should be closer to 11,700 properties.
Head of development Lawrence Isted came before Wrexham Council’s executive board yesterday and said: “I recommend, regrettably, that the LDP be withdrawn and resubmitted.”
The move will delay new policies on affordable housing and employment from being adopted for “at least two years”, he said.
In that time there would be no such policies in place as the old plan had now lapsed.
He said the main issues the inspector had were a “significant shortfall” in housing, a lack of affordable housing allocated and a insufficient gipsy and traveller provision in the plan.
He said only the inspector had the power to suspend or withdraw the LDP, but only a withdrawal would be realistic as a six month suspension would not be enough time to review and meet the inspector’s requests.
Mr Isted said the inspector was using Welsh Government figures from 2008 to suggest the housing shortfall – figures which members had considered out of date and unrepresentative when drawing up the LDP.
“There was a strong public consultation process and strong public support for this LDP,” Mr Isted said, “but the inspector has decided there is insufficient evidence that the Welsh Government projections should not be met in full.”
Cllr Mike Morris said he was very disappointed, adding the inspector had criticised the plan for relying on out-of-date studies, but then accepted out-of-date Welsh Government figures as part of his criticism.
The board also considered legally challenging the inspector’s decision with a judicial review. However, head of corporate and customer services Trevor Coxon said it was too early to consider this before a firm decision to withdraw or suspend had officially been made by the inspector.