Burntwood Action Group's Save Our Green Belt logo
Burntwood Action Group's Save Our Green Belt logo

A group of residents fighting proposed housing development in Burntwood have admitted they are “pleased” with amendments to the plans for their area.

Burntwood Action Group’s letter to Lichfield District Council came in response to the new Lichfield District Core Strategy Policy Directions April 2009 document.

The document came about following a preferred options consultation, where the council identified a need to “make more use of brownfield land and to minimise the need for urban extensions”.

While the council have yet to confirm the exact nature of their plans for development, they claim in the Preferred Spatial Strategy document:

“It is considered that the strategy should be based upon a balanced form of growth across the District, focusing primarily on Lichfield, and to a lesser extent Burntwood and key rural settlements. Growth will likely take place where possible within the settlements but also recognise a need for new sustainable communities as extensions to Lichfield.

“Burntwood will have a lesser role in accommodating new growth to that of Lichfield City, but nevertheless should accommodate a proportion of the required housing growth, taking account of existing facilities and the potential to create an expanded town centre.

“Further work will seek to identify the extent to which new housing can be accommodated within brownfield and redevelopment sites in Burntwood to avoid the need for expansion of the town into Green Belt locations.”

And now Burntwood Action Group, who have been battling the plans to develop on Green Belt sites have given a tentative thumbs up to the plan.

In a written response to Lichfield District Council, the group’s chairman, Vic Chamberlain, said:

“We were very pleased to see the amended proposals for housing development in the Burntwood area. We are encouraged that both the Planning Department and Lichfield District Council have taken full account of the comments and views expressed by the Burntwood public in the revised document.

“We fully appreciate the difficulty of producing a long-term plan for the district to encompass the needs and expectations of the Lichfield District population. Although there may be small points of detail in the document on which we would disagree, overall the Lichfield District Core Strategy Policy Directions April 2009 document appears to be fairly well balanced, and as such we can now support the proposals which it contains.”

Founder of Lichfield Live and editor of the site.