Hucknall: Whyburn Farm green belt set to be saved as council moves to scrap plans for 3,000 houses

The initial draft local plan announcement from Ashfield District Council caused huge controversy when it was revealed that there was the prospect of building 3,000 new homes on Whyburn as part of almost 8,000 of new homes overall in the district with some 5,000 in Hucknall alone.

A campaign group, Hucknall Against Whyburn Farm Development, was immediately formed and a petition with more than 4,000 signatures calling for the plan to be scrapped was handed in to the council last autumn.

A series of campaign events and a public meeting to protest against the plans were also held.

And now, the campaign is set to end in victory for the people with the council set to initiate plans that will see Whyburn removed from the plans.

Coun Jason Zadrozny-Bland (Ash Ind), said: “We are progressing to the next stage of the local plan which is the next stage of consultation which is going directly to Government.

"As part of that, we are proposing that we do not meet the Government’s targets, we think around 8,000 houses is too high and we want to push back around 5,000 instead and we want to have a minimal impact on the green belt.

"In the previous plan we had allocated three per cent of building on the green belt, now it will be less than one per cent and if you’re looking to take 3,000 houses out of the local plan, there’s only one site that meets that number – so Whyburn Farm is out, Whyburn Farm is saved.”

"We now want the public to get behind this new proposal and give their support for the plan to the Government because ultimately, we are not meeting their targets because we think their targets are crackers.

"We didn’t want to do the plan as it was because there are so many different nuances to it and in all other cases we have met our targets because we are well placed on the M1 corridor and create jobs.

"So on all other aspects we have gone over and above apart from this figure for 8,000 houses that they keep plucking out of the air.

"As part of that, we could have a 20 per cent buffer but we think we now have a strong case to take back to them because we’ve listened to local people, the public and local councillors have written detailed objections and we think we have a strong case.

"The reason we are pressing the button now is that about 60-odd councils across the country are in limbo with their local plans and we want to be the first council on the new Prime Minister’s desk, whoever that is, in September.

"We want to say to them, ‘we’re ready to go, give us a Government inspector to inspect our plan and give local people and businesses certainty for the next 10 years.

"We’ve done all the studies required of us and we now want to go to the Government and say this is a good plan for the people of Ashfield.”

“There is a bit of governance to take care of, the proposal first has to go before the local plan steering group on September 13 and it has to formally make a recommendation to cabinet, which I’m confident they will do.

"It then goes to cabinet on September 19 and after that, the council’s getting its officers team ready now to go straight to that next stage of consultation."

That will then allow the public to have their say again but the difference will be that instead of sending their comments to the council, they will be sent directly to the Government, department responsible for local plans, the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Coun Zadrozny-Bland added: "We’ve seen how fiery and genuinely upset some residents were about it and we’ve listened to them all and always said we need to take this fight back to Government because we think 5,000 houses is more than enough for Ashfield over the next 10 years.”