BROMSGROVE MP Bradley Thomas writes for the Standard.
THE GOVERNMENT’S Planning and Infrastructure Bill is currently making its way through Parliament, and as I made clear in the House of Commons, the identity of Bromsgrove and the villages must be protected to prevent us from becoming an extension of Birmingham.
Our constituency is 89 per cent rural, yet Bromsgrove is seeing its housing target set by Government increase by 85 per cent at a time when Birmingham’s housing target is decreasing by more than 20 per cent.
The green belt must be protected. In Bromsgrove we are 89 per cent green belt, with beautiful countryside all around.
I don’t believe residents of Bromsgrove are NIMBY. They just do not want the identity of Bromsgrove to be eroded or for our home to become some kind of extension of Birmingham. We must ensure the large buffer of green belt between Bromsgrove and Birmingham remains intact.
Identity underpins the fundamentals we should be talking about when it comes to housebuilding. It’s about sense of place and a lifestyle that people identify with.
When I’m about and about speaking to constituents, many have grown up in Birmingham and moved into north Worcestershire.
In many cases, they’ve done so because there’s an aspirational element to moving into the countryside and they want to benefit from the countryside that Worcestershire offers, while being in close proximity to Birmingham and all the services it offers.
Rather than building all over our green belt, the Government should pursue a policy of intensive urban densification. Our country faces a real opportunity if we focus on increasing the number of properties, particularly in larger urban areas, including London and Birmingham.
It’s also a great opportunity to regenerate some of the larger towns across our country.
And if we get urban densification right, it could be the catalyst for the economic and social renewal of town centres which is desperately needed.
I’m urging the Government to focus on the positive role intensive urban densification can play in delivering housing where it is needed and where young people live, and in regenerating town centres undergoing a lot of change.
Bromsgrove has suffered from a lot of development in recent years, and it has not had the infrastructure to go with it. If we want to strike the right balance and enable young people to stay in the communities where they grew up, particularly rural ones, we need to have the housing there, but we also need to recognise that rural areas cannot do all the heavy lifting.
Bradley Thomas
Bromsgrove MP
