WYRE Forest has been lucky over one of the more unpleasant aspects of planning. But now, it seems, our luck has run out and we have started to see the activities of planning enablers emerge around the district. Residents in Bewdley will know the name Gladmans, whilst an application for change of use of land in Areley Kings is ringing alarm bells. An application off Hurcott Lane outside Kidderminster is the third application into green belt land.

The green belt is land designated as protected from development. But under certain circumstances, a developer can argue that a local authority is not meeting its housing needs and so green belt can be used to build houses. In so doing, a farmer’s field, worth £10,000 per acre for agricultural use, could potentially be revalued at hundreds of thousands of pounds per acre as development land. The planning enabler – who specialises in the legal arguments – takes a significant share of the uplift of value for their trouble. So what is happening, in the case of Bewdley, is that Gladmans are playing around with legal issues to ride roughshod over local wishes.

Wyre Forest District Council is very good as establishing what local residents want. This is done through what is known as a local plan and this defines where housing and other development goes and is done democratically. Local parishes have democratic neighbourhood plans as well. Wyre Forest has already established a local plan but the legal brains behind Gladmans will argue that a subsequent Act of Parliament may make it void, so they can use a host of arguments to screw profit out of unwelcome developments before pushing off to ruin another part of the green belt.

We need more housing and we have built a great deal on brownfield sites locally. These sites, found by the council, were democratically agreed – as have future sites identified. We welcome developers who invest in new homes. But Gladmans, and others like them, will engage in a legal battle with Wyre Forest District Council to make a fast buck. The council will, of course defend these actions, but at a cost to all of us tax payers. So my message to Gladmans and all their friends who do this type of thing is this: get lost, we don’t want you here and I will work with WFDC to not only make sure you lose, but that the council recovers its costs from you.