Cllr Patrick Harley. Leader of Dudley Borough Council (Dudley News, Martyn Smith 12 May 2025) says “Let’s kill the myth on grey belt, we have no real real grey belt in Dudley….” And he also says Dudley’s house building target of of 1594 new homes a year is unachievable “even if we allocated all green belt land, greenfield and brownfield sites”. Another place where there is no future for the young due to leadership failure over a generation.
His land claim in fact is wrong. According to his own council’s website, Dudley comprises 98 square kilometres or 38 square miles, and about one third of it is green belt or public green spaces. There may be some unprotected and undeveloped white land in addition. This is unknown. All the same a large part of Dudley is developed. So he and his fellow councillors need to raise their spatial game, not put their head in the sand to decide where the next generation of new homes can go.
Participating in local strategic planning tells you is the answer. Shame that Dudley withdrew from the joint plan for the Black Country in the West Midlands late in 2022. Here is another failed council without a spatial growth policy who thinks that shutting their eyes sends future problems away. As their predecessors did not look ahead a generation ago, and Cllr Harley’s team are not able to do so today, responsibility for long term spatial planning in Dudley needs to be removed from Dudley Council. Two failures is enough to change the way things are done to avoid the risk of building a new generation of slums in the future as default building initiatives replace master planning which creates popular places. It is worrying to see local leaders who do not understand how reality happens.
The long term way forward, to reduce building on valued open space is to designate regeneration areas for rebuilding at higher densities without cars starting in 10+ years ahead. A policy of spatial definition and land ownership control needs immediate implementation in the areas identified. In the short term ti make up for myopic omission, some open space will have to be sacrificed. If this reality is too contentious honourable resignation is better than being responsible for a new generation of slums.
Ian Campbell
19 May 2025
