2,000 border county homes under consideration

Twm Owen Local Democracy Reporter

A plan for 2,000 new homes across a Welsh county will help support 6,000 new jobs, a council has said, after the previous development plan was focused too much on houses sought by retirees.

Monmouthshire County Council has set out the approach behind its replacement local development plan which sets out where new housing, and employment sites, should be located as an examination of the plan, intended to guide development in the county through to 2033, gets underway.

Two independent inspectors are leading a series of meeting which will hear from objectors who want parts of the plan to change as well as questions from regulator Natural Resources Wales and some local community councils and civic group.

At the first of 12 planned hearing sessions, on Tuesday, September 8, the council’s deputy leader Paul Griffiths said the plan is intended to support affordable housing, ‘zero carbon homes’ and the economy.

Cllr Griffiths said he had reviewed the previous preferred strategy for the development plan, from 2021 when the council was under Conservative control, after Labour took leadership of the council in 2022.

“We concluded there was an over reliance on development of market housing, demand for which would not come from within the county,” said Cllr Grfiffiths who claimed homes would likely be sought by people retiring further skewing the county’s aging demographic.

He said the Welsh Government had also opposed the proposed rate of growth in the 2021 strategy which had a headline figure of 7,600 new homes which was 4,000 more than those carried over from the previous plan which is still in use as the council’s planning policy.

The current proposal is to allow for up to 2,000 new homes with a total figure, including those either already built or approved under the previous plan, of 5,400 homes.

Cllr Griffiths said 50 per cent of those 2,000 new homes would be affordable, largely for social rent as an assessment had shown more than half of people couldn’t afford market housing in Monmouthshire.

Viability of the 50 per cent target has been assessed, said Cllr Griffiths, while the council, with developers, also tested its plan for all new homes to be net zero carbon which would mean they must generate, from roof mounted solar panels, as much energy as required to “occupy the homes”.

Business leaders, Cllr Griffiths said, say they have the potential to generate 6,000 new jobs but said the Chepstow councillor said: “They have been held back by a lack of labour and a lack of land.

“The provision of affordable housing will address the lack of labour and provision of employment sites will address the lack of land within the county.

“It is an ambitious plan which is achievable.”

Cllr Griffiths also said housing sites, which are centred around land between Portskewett and Caldicot, Chepstow, Abergavenny and Monmouth, had been selected to be less reliant on private transport and to support local town centres.

During the first hearing objectors also questioned how the council has considered air pollution in the plan and the location of new housing.

Inspectors Claire MacFarlane and Julie de-Courcey are leading the examination, which is being conducted online with contributors taking part via video links, and stated their role is to assess if the plan is in line with Welsh planning policy, whether it is “appropriate” for the area based on the evidence provided and whether it will be effective.

A total of 12 hearing sessions are due to take place through to Thursday, October 8.

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