RSS scrapped - a good news story!

The Regional Spatial Strategy - agreed by the last Labour Government - is abolished today. This is a good news story for Morley as the figures proposed within the RSS have been an albatross around our necks as we battled to retain  Morley Greenfield sites such as Daisy Hill.

Indeed the RSS figures were behind the Leeds City Council decision to stop fighting appeals against developer's lodging applications on Greenfield sites across Leeds. This was a flawed decision because the figures they proposed of over 3500 new housing units was always unrealistic and could only be delivered by building on Greenfield sites. This meant developer's avoided regenerating Brownfield sites as they flocked towards Greenfield ones as the City Council failed to have the backbone to do anything about it!

As it stands today there are no RSS figures and the questionable targets proposed by LCC of over 70,000 new homes - with 7000 plus coming to Morley - has no legal significance as the Plan has not been through a public examination yet.

This means we should have new hope for keeping Morley's Greenfield sites green. We will direct Developers to the 22,000 planning permissions already granted for housing on mainly Brownfield sites across Leeds along with the 10,000 plus homes empty across the city which need to be brought back into use. That's over 32,000 homes which at a completion rate of 2000 a year will mean we have enough land supply for housing to cover us until 2028.

In the finals analysis we have an option to hold on to most of Morley's Greenfield sites and focus development on Brownfield ones. The question is will Labour exercise this option?