New homes could be built on Green Belt land in Burntwood after councillors voted to keep two sites on the list of possible sites for housing.
Around 250 homes have been earmarked for land off Highfields Road, while 80 could be constructed near Coulter Lane.
Lichfield District Council’s Cabinet voted to allow the plans to be put out for consultation.
Steve Norman, Labour’s candidate for the Burntwood South division at the forthcoming Staffordshire County Council elections said locals were paying the price for decisions made at all levels of the Conservative administration.
“The council had already agreed to take out the Coulter Lane site in the 2013 Green Belt Review, but Highfields Road survived – until this meeting.
“I did have some sympathy for the Cabinet members responsible for the Local Plan, who had to explain the decision, though all knew of course, that they had to comply with the Conservative Government’s rules in terms of the National Planning Policy Framework.
“While the Conservative manifesto said that the Green Belt would be protected, the new Housing White Paper says ‘Green Belt boundaries should be amended only in exceptional circumstances when local authorities can demonstrate that they have fully examined all other reasonable options for meeting their identified housing requirements’ – that is the Council’s case, they have looked everywhere else.”
Mr Norman added that the story of increased housing development in Burntwood could still have several chapters yet.
“Lichfield District will have to find land for Birmingham’s housing needs in the next few years as well,” he said.
“A Conservative government, a Conservative Council means it is still Conservative policies.”
Lichfield District Council confirmed to LichfieldLive that the public consultation over the proposals for new housing would open on March 20.
