WIRRAL'S Conservative councillors claimed they fear the new Labour government could rip up a major plan to protect the borough’s green belt.

In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves announced a number of major planning changes including bringing back housing targets and a review of greenbelt boundaries. The new Labour government said its measures will “prioritise Brownfield and grey belt land for development to meet housing targets where needed” and promote growth in the economy.

The announcement was greeted with “alarm bells” among Wirral Council’s Conservative opposition, with their leader Cllr Jeff Green arguing “developers will once again try their luck.” However, Labour Wirral Council leader, Cllr Paul Stuart, said it was “scaremongering and dissemination of misinformation” and Wirral’s brownfield first Local Plan would be “one of the first to be adopted under our new Labour Government.”

The Local Plan is a major policy the local authority has been developing for years which outlines how and where developments will take place on the Wirral up to 2040. It’s currently in the final stages of government scrutiny before a final decision and currently designates no areas of green belt for development.

This was despite challenges from a number of landowners and developers to change green belt boundaries, including for small villages and hospitals. Current green belt boundaries include Clatterbridge and Arrowe Park hospitals as well as villages like Frankby, Thornton Hough, Brimstage, and Thurstaston.

The local plan promises to build at least 14,000 new homes by 2040 in areas such as Birkenhead, Seacombe and Bromborough with major changes proposed. This comes as homeless costs continue to increase for Wirral Council while social housing lets have fallen by a third and fewer homes were built in 2023 than in any year since the pandemic.

Development of the green belt is one area which the Conservatives have regularly criticised Labour on in the past both locally and nationally. Referring to national policy that brought Local Plans into force in 2004, Cllr Green, said: “All parties in Wirral joined with us to make a commitment to protect Wirral’s Green Belt although in the case of the Labour Councillors, this was 15 years after the Blair Government instructed them to do so.

“Wirral’s draft Local Plan will deliver new homes, but instead of using Green Belt as a previous Council Leader wanted, it will see the run down urban areas of the Borough redeveloped instead.

“My concern now is that, following the Chancellor’s directive, speculators and developers will once again try their luck at building on our Green Belt. Or, worse, that the new Government will rip up our draft Local Plan and instruct us to start again.

“We have 17,322 acres of Green Belt in Wirral. In view of the new Government’s policy I will be asking the Leader of the Council to assure us that he will stick to the Local Plan we’ve agreed and not be pressured by his Party to water down Wirral’s commitment to protect, preserve and enhance our precious Green Belt.

“Labour Councillors have agreed with us, until today, on this policy. I hope they will maintain their support now. Arbitrary, national housing targets using fancy formulas, are not the solution to Wirral’s housing needs. I doubt if many of the 5,691 families on the housing waiting list will benefit from this change of policy.”

However, Cllr Stuart said the claims were untrue, adding: “Wirral’s Local Plan is exceptional, as it presents a pro-growth, brownfield-only strategy. The Plan boldly confronts social inequality by pledging to provide our borough with much-needed homes, jobs, and infrastructure.

“A Labour-led council in Wirral has created the only Brownfield Local Plan in the UK, clearly demonstrating that there is no requirement to encroach on the Green Belt to meet our housing needs. Cllr Green’s recent scaremongering and dissemination of misinformation fails to acknowledge his neglect of the Local Plan when he was the council leader.

“Cllr Green is the single source of speculative statements, insinuating to developers that our green belt is available for development. As the Leader of Wirral Council, I want to make it clear that despite Cllr Green’s assertions to “speculators and developers,” our Green Belt is not up for sale!

“With the Tories in power for 14 years, the country faces a chronic shortage of homes. In Wirral, there are nearly 600 households assessed as homeless, with over 400 more households at risk of being assessed as homeless.

“Our ‘brownfield only’ Plan will address these challenges by delivering much-needed housing and regeneration in Seacombe, Liscard, and Birkenhead. Our Local Plan, supported by our local communities with full cross-party support, aims to provide 14,400 new homes between now and 2040, all of which will be developed on existing brownfield sites.

“Wirral is poised to have its Local Plan, being one of the first to be adopted under our new Labour Government.”

In response, Cllr Green said he was only leader from 2010 to 2011 and for three months in 2012 and pointed to threats of government intervention in 2017 over a lack of progress, a period when Labour ran the council.  He argued Labour’s record was “woeful” and thought there would been “greater understanding of his fellow Labour predecessors’ failures.”