The Conservative Group on Cornwall Council has called out the Liberal Democrat-Independent administration’s response to the Government’s Planning for the Future White Paper after it emerged that the administration’s response contained proposals that would encourage developers to build houses in additional areas not in the growth, renewal and protected areas covered in the consultation.
Commenting, Conservative Group Leader Linda Taylor said:
“At last week’s Full Council the Conservative Group would not support the blanket opposition to the Government’s White Paper on planning because we wanted to be aware of the full facts first.”
“We remain of the opinion that committing to a position before being in full possession of the facts would not have showed due diligence or allowed the consultation to have full scrutiny by members.”
“That being said, the Conservative Group have supported 32 of the 34 proposals suggested by Cornwall Council, in particular including our strong stance that the new housing numbers suggested for Cornwall are far too high and that for the threshold to increase to 40 or 50 units in a development before there is a need to provide any affordable housing is unacceptable for Cornwall.”
“However one thing we could absolutely not support are the proposals by this administration to allow and encourage developers to build houses in different areas not in the growth, renewal and protected areas that will be agreed by Community Engagement.”
“The consultation as set out provides firm areas for development and protection, and for Cornwall Council to ignore that and allow additional growth anyway frankly reeks of the so-called ‘Developers Charter’ that the administration was so quick to label the consultation as when it was first published.”
“This is why we would not support the council’s objection to the proposals without having seen the objection first. The damage this policy. proposed by the Lib Dems and Independents, if adopted could do to Cornwall is unimaginable, and we will certainly do all we can to oppose it.”
