Over the past 10 years nearly 7,000 new houses have been built in Dudley Borough. Despite this tremendous building rate the Council has managed to protect the open countryside and open spaces by guiding development on to derelict and vacant sites. Recently for every new house built on open land nine have been built on derelict and under-used sites.
The Council is very keen to continue to focus development on derelict and vacant sites - the so called brownfield sites; however, there are new concerns that the Council needs to consider:
- The need for more new homes.
- Increased cost of reclaiming derelict sites.
- New ideas on where new homes should be built.
- Lack of housing for people who cannot afford homes provided by private house builders.
The Council is concerned that new housing in the Borough meets the needs of as many people as possible. Most new housing over recent years has only met the needs of families that can afford to buy their own homes. While private family housing will still be needed in the future, the needs of less wealthy families and single people both old and young also need to be considered.
The Council is keen that a mix of housing types is included in new developments for both sale and rent.
Despite the large amount of new homes built in the Borough over the last 10 years less than 1 in 10 have been built by the public sector (including Housing Associations). Until the Council's Housing Needs Survey is completed we will not know how much social housing will be needed up until 2011.
Once this survey is complete the Council will be able to develop policies that should lead to more social housing being built in the Borough, often as part of new private housing developments.
Every region in England is given a housing target by Central Government split between County Councils and Metropolitan Districts like Dudley Borough. In 1995, the Government decided that Dudley Borough should provide land for 13,600 new houses between 1991 and 2011. The Council believed that this target was far too high and was concerned when the Government said last year that even more houses should be built in the West Midlands.
Over the last 2 years the Government and local authorities in the region have been working together to decide how the new housing targets should be distributed around the West Midlands. At the end of last year the Government announced a big increase in the number of new houses needed in the West Midlands Region. Due to the strong arguments put up by Dudley Council and despite the overall increase in the region, Dudley Borough housing target was actually reduced to 12,400 houses for the period 1991 - 2011.
Despite this reduction difficult decisions will need to be made as to where the new houses should be built. The Council are determined that the Green Belt and designated open spaces should be saved BUT unless enough brownfield sites can be found some open spaces may have to be used.
These early documents relate to the preparation of the Dudley Unitary Development Plan and chart the stages and position of policy in the Plan at each stage of the review. They are intended for reference only and the content does not necessarily reflect the current state of play.
