John Calls For New Local Plan To Be Even Greener, Include More Green Belt and M5 Upgrades

Weston’s MP John Penrose has written to North Somerset Council about improvements that are needed to its latest version of the Local Plan which will decide what gets built where in the area for years to come.


John’s letter applauds more focus in this latest draft on ‘Building Up, Not Out’ to provide more homes and investment in central Weston, and also for removing the small new town that had been planned between Churchill and Congresbury following his campaign and the concerns raised by many residents too. But he also says we need more green belt (including a ‘3 in 1 out’ system where every acre of lost greenbelt has to be replaced by 3 new ones, as well as a block of new greenbelt inland from the M5) and to stop ignoring the problems with the M5 and Junction 21.


John said: “To be fair, the Council’s plan has come an awfully long way since the early drafts. But there’s still a huge distance further to go to make sure North Somerset is a great place for future generations to live. The Council has to be more ambitious about improvements to the M5 and J21, more ambitious about green belt and protecting our green fields, and more ambitious about new investments and homes in central Weston too.  

“I will continue to support them in pushing the Government to reconsider our completely crackers housing targets. We’ve made some progress on this already, and Bristol is now making up for years of handing housing overspill to us in North Somerset. But how can it be right for our housing target to still be so much higher as a percentage increase in the number of houses we’ve got already than in South Gloucestershire or BANES for example?”