Test case imminent on whether councillors or developers should decide how many new homes should be built

Martin Shipton

A case to be heard at the Court of Appeal in London on Tuesday 15 October could decide whether democracy or developers have the most say on local planning policy in Wales.

Marc Jones, who leads the Plaid Cymru group on Wrexham council, is challenging a High Court judgement that councillors broke the law when they rejected a Local Development Plan (LDP) foisted on them by a Welsh Government inspector.

Together with council colleagues who also voted against the LDP, Cllr Jones - who is also the national Chair of Plaid Cymru - was threatened that he could be jailed for contempt of court if he continued to block the LDP.

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'Complicated'

He told Nation.Cymru: “It’s a complicated case, but the issue is quite simple. Should it be democratically elected councillors who decide on the amount of housing development that is appropriate in their local authority area, or should developers be calling the shots?

“Wrexham council is the only council in the UK to have refused to adopt its own LDP - twice. The reason is that it would have involved building two new giant housing estates on either side of the town - 1500 on the Ruthin Road and 1680 on the Cefn Rd - without any additional infrastructure. The developers are even quibbling about section 106 contributions to building new schools to accommodate the new population.

“We believed there was no need to build houses on green field sites, and were concerned that green spaces between villages outside Wrexham itself should not be filled in with housing. But the Welsh Government said the population was expected to rise by 20%, which would have made it impossible to avoid building on green field sites and between villages.

“What has made the situation even more ridiculous is that the case for more house building in the LDP was based on grossly exaggerated predictions about the growth in the local population. The 20% rise was later revised downwards to 10%, and the latest prediction is that the population will remain fairly static.”

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Private developments

Cllr Jones said that, nevertheless, developers had been keen to see the LDP adopted so that they would be able to make successful planning applications for private developments. ”Another concern is that the proportion of affordable homes that are proposed to be built is pretty low at 9%,” he said.

“The pressure councillors have been put under has been intolerable and unacceptable,” said Cllr Jones. “We believe that we are best placed to decide on the needs of our communities, but that was taken out of our hands.

“Mr Justice Lewison has ruled that our case, which is being funded through a crowdfunder and local donations, can go forward to the Court of Appeal after a consortium of seven housing developers (including Redrow, Barratt Homes and Bloor Homes - the big boys) took the council to Judicial Review for twice refusing to vote for its own LDP. Under threat of imprisonment, councillors voted at the third time of asking in December for the LDP. The Plaid group abstained in that third vote.

“The Welsh Government backed the developers and Wrexham council failed to even defend the democratic vote in court."

“But many councillors elsewhere are seeing this as a big test case. We’ve been contacted by people from elsewhere in Wales but also from England. It really does go to the heart of what local democracy is all about. Fighting the case has taken up a lot of time and energy, but we felt we didn’t have any choice. It’s an important battle.”

In granting Cllr Jones leave to appeal, Mr Justice Lewison stated: “I am satisfied that … the proposed appeal (a) has a real prospect of success and (b) raises an important point of principle.”

Cllr Jones said: “We’ve funded the case through crowdfunding, and are very grateful to everyone who has contributed. We believe we have a good case and hope we win. If we do, the council will be left without an LDP and the situation will have to be looked at again.”

The case is scheduled to last for two days.