Dudley Local Plan: Council looking for new sites for future homes

Each of the Black Country authorities is creating its own local plan and Dudley is renewing its call for brownfield sites.

The council will start the ‘call for sites’ process early next month and is asking people to submit any new sites through the process. Sites which have previously been submitted do not need to be resubmitted as they are already in the assessment process. Only new sites or previous sites, where information may have changed, since their last submission should be put forward.

Additionally, the government recently announced reforms to national planning policy as part of the levelling-up bill. This will give clarity over green belt requirements and means councils will be under no obligation to review green belt for potential housing use.

Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, said: "This announcement by the government, shows that our brownfield first approach has been vindicated and we anticipate that, subject to the policy being approved that we will be able to exclude green belt from all future proposals.

"We have always been a brownfield first authority and we will continue in this vein.

"This renewed call for sites means that we will be looking at every single possible site for development while leaving our precious green belt out of consideration and I would urge people to submit any new brownfield sites to us for consideration".

The Dudley Local Plan will focus on housing and employment needs which will inform developments and planning decisions in the future, whilst also reflecting local people’s views on the use of green belt land.

The ‘call for sites’ process will launch in early February and run for six weeks.

Following this, officers will assess the sites. Those sites which are considered as being suitable for development will be included in the Draft Dudley Plan which will be published for a six-week public consultation over the summer.