Blueprint for thousands of new homes scrapped

Villagers have welcomed the scrapping of a controversial blueprint which included building a "massive new car-based" town which they feared would have ruined the Malvern Hills.

Civic chiefs of the Forest of Dean have pulled the blueprint for a development they were working on which sought land to build more than 13,000 homes over the next 20 years.

The proposals included the creation of new settlements, one in Churcham and another at Glynchbrook, at the foothills of the Malverns.

A United Against Glynchbrook spokesperson said: "It was never a sustainable option for development, as there isn't a train station and it would have caused harm to Malvern Hills and surrounding heritage assets."

Forest of Dean District Council has now decided to withdraw the draft local plan due to a lack of political support and not enough time to meet the December deadline to submit the document.

The United Against Glynchbrook spokesperson added: "As residents from across the Forest of Dean, we ask that the new Local Plan sets out a roadmap for the delivery of the genuinely sustainable homes people need, in the areas best able to accommodate them – not isolated settlements like Glynchbrook."

The suggestion of building two new settlements was included in the district council's draft proposal after the Labour government almost doubled the housing target for the area from 6,600 homes to 13,200 last year.

Green Party leaders at Coleford see the area's housing target as a tall, if not impossible, order given the limited space made available and suited to sustainable building in the Forest.

A party spokesperson said: "The Forest of Dean Green Party is hugely disappointed the current draft plan has been scuppered.

"Had the government not imposed its huge 82% increase in the number of houses to be built here, we'd be well on track to have in place our own local plan."

The BBC has contacted the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for comment.

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