Clash coming over Telford & Wrekin Council ‘duty to co-operate’

Developers are set to tell Government inspectors that Telford & Wrekin Council’s local plan is “legally non-compliant” over the issue of providing homes for the Black Country and Birmingham.

Boningale Developments Ltd and the Home Builders Federation are lining up to take on council planners at a set of local plan review hearings due to start in Telford on February 24.

The outcome will determine how the Telford and Wrekin borough will develop over the next 14 years.

A statement submitted by Boningale’s agent Marrons read: “The plan, in its current form, is legally non-compliant and should not proceed unless and until […] strategic cross-boundary matters are properly resolved and formally secured.”

The developers say that the council has submitted a “large volume of material showing that engagement activity has taken place” but this “does not amount to robust evidence that the duty to co-operate has been met in substance”.

Shropshire’s two unitary authorities – like others across the region – have been under a legal duty to cooperate and take a share of the ‘unmet’ housing needs from the urban West Midlands.

Although that is changing, councils will still be expected to work with other authorities.

Marrons added: “The most serious shortcoming relates to unmet housing need from the Black Country.

“Although the council proposes a minimal contribution, there is no finalised and binding agreement which secures how that contribution will be apportioned, delivered, phased or monitored.

“The evidence therefore demonstrates cooperation in process, but not cooperation in outcome. That distinction is critical. Without finalised agreements that make the plan’s strategic commitments real, enforceable and deliverable, the Duty to Co-operate has not been robustly met.”

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal representative body of the house-building industry in England and Wales.

Its representatives have told the inspectors that Telford and Wrekin’s local plan is required to “maximise housing provision within the plan area and do what it can to meet the unmet needs of neighbouring authorities and the wider West Midlands region”.

“HBF is unclear how the council arrived at a figure of 153 dwellings per annum to assist with the unmet need of the wider area, and why it is not doing, or being asked, to do more.”

But councils in the Black Country have jumped to the defence of Telford & Wrekin Council.

Dudley Council and Wolverhampton Council have both told the inspectors that Telford & Wrekin Council has done its bit for now, but unmet housing needs are still growing.

A statement from Dudley Council read: “The council has engaged in a positive, cooperative and active manner with the Black Country  councils – both jointly and individually – throughout the preparation of the local plan.”

But they added that this needs an “early review” because “a cumulative evidenced housing shortfall remains”.

St Philips Land Limited, which owns land south of Holyhead Road in Wellington, has also told inspectors that it “considers that the council has provided sufficient, and robust, evidence to demonstrate that the duty to cooperate has been met”.

However St Philips Land Limited says there is an unmet housing need of circa 32,800 dwellings arising predominantly from the Black Country which will rise to circa 45,000 dwellings by 2042.

It says Telford & Wrekin Council has not sought to ‘defer’ this matter and indeed increased its proposed contribution from 80 dwellings per annum in 2024 to the currently proposed 153 per annum.

It added: “Crucially, given the current scale of these unmet needs, it is also clear that the council is one of the only authorities to effectively grapple with this issue and make a proportionate contribution to addressing them – as opposed to other authorities who have sought to defer addressing these needs by markedly reducing their proposed contribution.”

Telford & Wrekin Council planners have told the inspectors that it has “submitted robust evidence to demonstrate that the duty to co-operate has been met and that the council has engaged actively, constructively and on an ongoing basis”.