Redditch

There were 309 planning applications during 2010, mostly extensions of houses but also several employment units and one school.

Astwood Bank produced a proposal for 7 houses at the Wellington Works, constituting a change of use at a brownfield site. Across the road, another change of use occurred when permission was given for 4 flats to replace office space. At Mayfield Works in Mayfietd District, permission has been given for 23 flats, subject to providing more parking space; this is a brownfield site where existing buildings were being vandalised. Upper Norgrove House in Webheath suffered an arson attack after the Residents’Association attended a council meeting to object to any building on that site. It is in an Area of Development Restraint (ADR) and has no infrastructure. The latest ‘sell-off’ of school sites resulted in outline permission for 220 homes on Dingleside School land.

All the above 254 dwellings were the result of windfall applications.

The first public consultation of the Revised Preferred Draft Core Strategy closed on 4th March. It contains several new and replacement policies and its appendix identifies several sites for residential development.

These include 145 dwellings to the rear of Alexandra Hospital, 425 in the Brockhill ADR, 400 in the Brockham Green Belt, and 230 in the Foxlydiate Green Belt, making a total of 1005 dwellings. Persimmons have already put in an application for 171 dwellings, plus 6 office blocks, on ADR land

The good news is that the 3,000 dwellings proposed as overflow from Redditch into the Bromsgrove District, in order to meet the targets of the Regional Spatial Strategy, have been withdrawn.