Hucknall councillor says he will appeal to Ashfield Independent colleagues to back call for plan for thousands of houses in town to be axed

Coun John Wilmott (Ash Ind) says the town has already had its fair share of new housing and Ashfield District Council should look elsewhere instead of threatening the town’s green belt.

As reported by the Dispatch - and revealed at Saturday's public meeting in Hucknall on the plans - Hucknall' s Coun Lauren Mitchell (Lab), is intending to put forward a motion at the next full council meeting for the local plan, in its current form, to be dropped.

Coun Wilmott said publically at the meeting he would vote in favour of that but for the motion to succeed, 18 councillors of the 35 elected members of Ashfield Council would need to support it.

Currently, the ten Hucknall councillors – five from the Independents, three Conservatives and two Labour – look likely to support it.

But that still needs another eight from the remaining 25 council members – who are all Ashfield Independents – to support the motion.

And Coun Wilmott confirmed he would be canvassing for that support,

He said: "I will be campaigning strongly against any proposals to build housing on green belt in Hucknall and I’m looking forward to the challenge.

"I think that genuinely the council will have another look at the local plan now."

Coun Wilmott also again blamed the pressure of government housing targets for the council looking at the prospect of building on green belt.

Ashfield must pinpoint sites for more than 8,000 new homes under its emerging local plan, which is a statutory requirement.

But when the Dispatch put it to him that while the targets may be government-driven, the choice of location and the number built were the council’s decisions, Coun Wilmott said they were being forced to look at green belt because there weren’t any brownfield sites left.

He continued: "The main criteria is the Tories imposing on us the number of houses that we need to construct by 2038, I’m very upset about that.

"They know how many we’ve already built over the last 20 years, it’s unbelievable, and yet they still expect Ashfield, and Hucknall especially, to take more and more housing.

"The people are dead against it and I shall be supporting them.”

On the question of why the council is looking at green belt land in Hucknall, he said: "There aren’t any brownfield sites available, the 1,100 or so houses put forward for building on brownfield sites have used them all up and so they are saying we have to look at green belt.

"I wasn’t involved in the decision-making process but I personally wouldn’t put any more houses in Hucknall, on the green belt or anywhere major.

"I would just keep to the housing we are building on very small sites that need something to be done about them, such as old garage sites.

"Overall, Hucknall has had its fair share of housing and I shall be campaigning against this proposal.”