Save Royton's Greenbelt

 

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority creates the housing targets by applying a standardised methodology. The standard Government methodology takes projected household growth (based on projected population) and applies an affordability uplift to provide a local housing need figure (Greater Manchester’s Plan for Homes, Jobs and the Environment, p. 112).

 

There have been claims that the Government has set a target for Greater Manchester. This is not correct. Even though the Government has instructed the GMCA to use an outdated dataset that projects higher household growth than the most recent dataset (see Greater Manchester: Strategic Housing Market Assessment (2019), p. 35), there is no hard target. In a letter received by Councillor James Daly of Bury dated February 2019, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote that housing numbers should be the result of a “realistic assessment … using the standard method”. The result of this analysis would then be scrutinised by an independent inspector.

 

This point was further reiterated in a parliamentary debate on 21st February 2019 dedicated to the framework with housing minister Kit Malthouse stating the government's targets were not “mandatory”. He offered the following clarification: “Any inspector will accept a properly evidenced and assessed variation from that target … If, for example, you have constraints like areas of outstanding natural beauty or green belt, or whatever it might be, and you can justify a lower number, then an inspector should accept that.” (Greater Manchester is not being forced to build on green belt, insists minister, Manchester Evening News). Following the debate Malthouse wrote a letter to Jim McMahon (MP for Oldham West and Royton)setting out the Government's position explaining that greenbelt boundaries can only be altered in exceptional circumstances backed up by a fully evidenced justification. 

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