Cautious welcome for housing plan from campaigners

Duncan Reeves hoped the chancellor's plans would leave villages like Albrighton able to oppose development

Campaigners against plans for 800 new homes in the Shropshire countryside have urged the government to focus housing development on brownfield sites.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Monday that more development would be allowed in green belt areas like Albrighton, but that it should be focused on previously developed sites.

Residents in the village near Shifnal have been fighting plans for hundreds of new homes.

Local campaigner Duncan Reeves said: "The immediate reaction before understanding the detail was that we were worried."

Mr Reeves, a member of Albrighton Village Action Group, initially worried that the plans might make it easier for developers "to develop what we see as stereotypically green belt sites."

But reacting to the focus on sites like disused petrol stations or car parks, the campaigner added: "That's more reassuring, because what we have in Albrighton is not that, it's very much... rural farmland."

Albrighton has been the focus of a vocal campaign to prevent 800 new homes

Boningale Homes, which is behind the proposed development, has said 20% of the houses would be affordable.

It also wants to build a minor injuries unit, pharmacy, GP surgery, supermarket, secondary school for up to 750 students, a new high street, sports hall and games facility.

The developer claimed the site would create more than 1,000 jobs and add £62m into the local economy, as well as helping Shropshire and the Black Country meet their housing needs.

Another local builder, Mike Sambrook from SJ Roberts Homes, said the government's boost to house building was "extremely encouraging".

He said it was "quite unusual" for a new government to have such policies "so high up the agenda".