Objectors call for rethink on homes

Questions over lack of brownfield sites

- Phil Corrigan

OPPONENTS say it will be a 'dereliction of duty' to earmark Green Belt land for thousands of homes.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has allocated up to 3,000 homes to the Green Belt land at Lightwood in its draft local plan.

Scores of people attended a public meeting organised by Lightwood Community Group to discuss the plan and organise objections to it. The Labour-run city council is consulting the public on the plan, which, when adopted, will guide all development in Stoke-on-Trent up to 2040.

Stoke-on-Trent has been set a house-building target of 948 homes a year by the Government, but council leaders insist residents' feedback will be taken into account.

Community group David Evans told the meeting there are various arguments against developing the 116-hectare site, between Cocknage Road, Lightwood Road and Woodpark Lane. These include a mineral safeguarded area owing to the presence of Etruria marl under the land, and the fact it is in the Green Belt.