BUILDING new homes on Green Belt land around the district cannot be ruled out, according to the man in charge of planning at the district council.
Epping Forest District Council planning portfolio holder Richard Bassett defended the inclusion of Tube station car parks and patches of protected land in a list of more than 300 plots identified by consultants Nathaniel Litchfield and Partners.
The council is preparing to launch a consultation on its plan for dealing with the housing needs of a population expected to grow by 16,200 in the next 20 years.
District council planning portfolio holder Richard Bassett defended the inclusion of the car parks and Green Belt, adding that the council had to look at all open space to make its plan for the next two decades valid.
“What we have come up with is not a policy, it’s the land people have offered us,” he said. “Transport for London said ‘use our car parks’ and obviously, there are major issues with doing that.”
He added that if all sites were not looked at, a planning inspector could rule the council’s plan for housing invalid, meaning national policies that make development easier could be imposed.
“We have to look at all of it,” he said. “Otherwise, you get the developer using the national planning policy framework and saying ‘I want to build right in the middle of the Green Belt’.”
People will be asked for their views on the various sites in an eight week consultation starting on July 30.
Cllr Bassett said there would be some tough decisions to make.
“People must be realistic,” he added. “There are going to be more people who need houses. No-one is going to be happy with everything.
“Epping Forest is 92.7 per cent Green Belt land.”
He said only about 10 percent of homes needed over the next 20 years would be built in small developments of fewer than six homes.
A draft of the consultation can already be seen by going to the council’s website, eppingforestdc.gov.uk and going to the cabinet’s committee meeting for Monday (July 2).
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