PLANNING is a contentious issue – the fact that I am writing about it for the second week running just goes to show how much it features in my mailbag.

This time it is also about Areley Kings, but this week it is about a ridiculous anomaly that badly affects Stourport and Wyre Forest.

A planning authority – such as Wyre Forest District Council – has the power to approve (or otherwise) planning across the geographical district, but no further. It takes advice from various places – parish and town councils, highways departments, schools etc – as to how a district can cope with any new development. Based on that, it will make a decision.

Last week, Malvern Hills District Council approved the building of 62 new homes in the parish of Astley and Dunley. This is a substantial number of homes – they will be largely families so maybe have two cars each, children who need to use schools, they will eat and so need shops, and they will create waste. They will require services such as waste and water, gas, electricity, broadband bandwidth. And of course, the homes will need space to be built.

Of course this is always the case and there are provisions for authorities to benefit. The authority will collect council tax from the new homes – these could generate about £70,000 per year in total. But developers are also expected to pay what is known as a Section 106 payment to the planning authority – money that compensates the authority for the extra burden on resources such as schools, increasing waste collection capacity and a plethora of other services. So Malvern Hills will benefit from this, including the new home bonus that rewards councils for taking on more homes, for up to six years after they are built.

But here is the problem: these homes are to be built absolutely bang on the boundary between Wyre Forest and Malvern Hills.

Areley Kings will effectively increase by 62 homes. Stourport Town Council and Wyre Forest District Council all objected to the plans – as did I. But they are to be built simply because they will increase revenue to Malvern Hills, but costs will fall on us in Wyre Forest.

I am doing all I can to see if we can be compensated, but this is an example of how some planning rules are simply absurd.

CONTACT YOUR MP

  • Email: mark.garnier.mp@parliament.uk
  • Telephone: 020 7219 7198 or 01562 746771
  • Write: 9a Lower Mill Street, Kidderminster, DY11 6UU, or House of Commons, Westminster, London