Wirral Local Plan for housing approved - aims to protect greenbelt

A massive plan which will see huge numbers of homes built in Wirral has been approved.

Wirral Council's draft Local Plan, a document laying out plans for thousands of homes to be built in the borough between now and 2037, was passed at last night's meeting of the authority's cross-party Policy and Resources Committee.

Included in the document are proposals which will transform Birkenhead and see development focused on brownfield sites in the east of the borough, with the greenbelt protected. The homes plan includes the huge Wirral Waters project, a series of schemes which will see up to 13,000 homes built over the next 25 years along the Birkenhead docklands.

It also includes plans for around 1,000 homes at a new Hind Street Urban Village near Birkenhead town centre, as well as many other projects in Birkenhead and developments in Liscard and Leasowe. The Local Plan said 835 homes per year need to be delivered in Wirral, or 13,360 over the period of this plan.

However, the council must identify more than this amount as some sites may not come forward at the pace expected. The document read: "This Local Plan therefore makes provision for the delivery of almost 18,000 dwellings."

The plan protects the green belt, with all of the developments focused on brownfield land. Yesterday's endorsement of the plan does not mean it will come in tomorrow however, as it still faces a number of hurdles including Monday's full council meeting, a six-week public consultation and a review by the government which could take as long as 12 months.

But it is a big moment as the four main groups in the council where no one party has a majority, including the biggest group, Labour, as well as the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens, voted in favour of the plan. Speaking at tonight's meeting, Cllr Tom Anderson, leader of the Conservative group on the council, said the draft plan was "fantastic" and said plans to regenerate the borough would not be where they are now if the Local Plan was not as "robust" as it is.

Labour councillor Yvonne Nolan also commended the plan, saying she "absolutely welcomed" the brownfield first policy. Green Party group leader, Cllr Pat Cleary, wanted to know how the borough would work towards achieving the major environmental goal of reducing carbon emissions to zero, known as 'net zero' while carrying out regeneration projects.

Alan Evans, the local authority's director of regeneration, said there was a challenge of viability which meant the council could not always impose "massive obligations" on developers. But he said environmental sustainability was at the heart of the council's strategy for Birkenhead and the authority was looking at new ways of designing and building homes going forward.

Major parts of the Local Plan are focused on Birkenhead. One part of the plan seeks to completely change Wirral's biggest town, with the "comprehensive regeneration of Birkenhead as a low-carbon sustainable waterfront garden 'city'." The Local Plan is closely tied to the recently approved framework for Birkenhead's development between now and 2040, which looked at the plan for 1,000 homes near the town centre among many other proposals.

The regeneration plan said the Hind Street Urban Village will be a "market changing" plan creating a low-carbon urban village of up to 1,000 homes. It will see the two flyovers currently splitting up the site removed and could even see a new school built.

Efforts to give the town more green space will also be made, with plans to create a park along the disused railway running through Birkenhead, called Dock Branch Park, which Wirral Council believes will be completed by the end of 2024. On this plan, the document read: "[Dock Branch Park] will see the creation of a beautiful new linear park and active travel corridor along the disused Dock Branch Railway, one of the earliest railways in the country.

"It will bring to life a neglected gem of Birkenhead's heritage and link three key development areas: Wirral Waters, the Town Centre and Hind Street Urban Village." Among the infrastructure set to support the building of thousands of homes in years to come is a plan to create more jobs and a greener environment while making it easier to get around the borough.

On this, the Local Plan looks to develop active travel networks for walking and cycling which will help people access jobs and leisure facilities across Wirral and a new mass transit system within Birkenhead connecting new neighbourhoods with one another and existing key locations.