In response to the article in The Sunday Times (Green fields hit by ‘no win, no fee developers, 30th November 2014), we are promoting this site through Birmingham Development Plan.
Birmingham City Council has been actively seeking consultation on options for removing land from the green belt to meet their housing targets, and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has confirmed that the only way land can be removed from the green belt is to promote it through the Development Plan. We therefore have not and will not submit an application while the land remains within the green belt.
We understand that Sutton Coldfield is in much need of sustainable development, and our approach is to find a solution that will support social and economic growth within the area. We believe that releasing land from the green belt is a viable solution to meet the city’s own housing need which otherwise remains unfulfilled. The City itself is already removing land from the Green Belt for 6,000 houses and we are simply using our right through the plan making process to suggest more land is required due to the demographic change.
Richborough Estates is promoting land on the edge of Sutton Coldfield for up to 2,000 dwellings alongside employment, leisure and education uses. Birmingham City Council is currently undertaking a Green Belt Review and we will continue to promote the site through the plan process. We believe that the unique socio-economic benefits and the commitment to deliver a very high quality development would provide significant benefits to the City.
On the 3rd September the Birmingham Post asked for our comments on the housing supply of Birmingham. This is our statement in full:
“Richborough Estates is promoting land on the edge of Sutton Coldfield for up to 2,000 new homes along with some employment, leisure and education uses, in response to Birmingham City Council’s invitation to respond to its Development Plan which looks ahead to 2031.
The City Council recognises that the Census has shown the city’s population is larger than previously thought and there is a pressing need to deliver around 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years, a rate of housebuilding not seen since the 1960s.
The city currently has the capacity for only around 45,000 homes (including approximately 17,000 which already have planning permission). Even if all of these were built, there would still be a need to find around 35,000 elsewhere, whether within the city’s boundary or beyond in the adjoining authorities of the West Midlands urban area.
It is widely anticipated that the City Council will have to accommodate some of these homes within its own boundaries and several locations to the east and north-east of Sutton Coldfield are under consideration as part of the consultation exercise.
Richborough Estates, as well as other landowners and developers, have put forward the case that some development in the Green Belt is both inevitable and can be made acceptable.
The City Council will publish its revised plan in October when we will find out firstly whether it agrees that Green Belt land should be released for housing and secondly which sites are preferred.
So it is not so much a question of whether there is a choice between sites which already have permission in the city or sites in the Green Belt, but more one of whether those sites with permission will be enough to meet the city’s housing need even if they were all viable, capable of providing the homes that the city needs, and in places that people want to live.”