FOLLOWING the refusal of planning permission on the greenfield in Hopwood, in the green belt, Council Leader Roger Hollingworth has said he disagreed with the planning officers, said the site is brownfield and what could come now maybe far worse than the housing.

He seems to be in some state of perpetual denial, showing little regard for Bromsgrove District Council planning officers or their professional reports and seems to have an off-piste agenda focussed mainly on his own thoughts.

He says to use common sense when it comes to building on the green belt.

After speaking at the planning committee in November and then again in January as Chairman of Hopwood Residents Association, I was pleased to see the planning officers and planning committee members use their common sense in a right and proper way to support the council’s laid-down planning policies.

Committee members unanimously supported the planning officers’ recommendations and refused this inappropriate application as being outside of Hopwood’s boundary envelope and within the green belt, and if it had been approved it would have caused irreparable harm to the green belt’s purpose.

They disregarded the November pleas from the Council Leader that the application be approved within the green belt, even though the Conservative Government says it attaches great importance to protecting the green belt.

The planning officers finally brought a conclusion to the argument that the site had never been used for previous residential use and thus was not considered a brownfield site at all. It is undoubtedly a green field site which has been manipulated by degradation through dumping of hard core and felling of boundary trees and hedges to make it appear a site suitable for development.

Hopwood residents have been requesting enforcement on this site for many years as it is being continuously degrading it, hoping to achieve speculative development in the green belt.

Is Mr Hollingworth more interested in gathering funds through new housing bonuses and section 106 money from applications? Little is then seen from these building provisional bonuses, which should be distributed fairly for the benefit of local communities and not just added to the council’s common coffer to ease their cutbacks.

He does not heed the views of local residents and has scant regard for his own council’s planning legislation.

He continually consults with developers first and not with local communities or the parish council.

Hopwood and Alvechurch residents want a local ward council which works for local residents. It is time Mr Hollingworth got back on board with the local community and let’s get back to democracy.

A SMITH Chairman Hopwood Residents Association