PUBLIC consultation on major regeneration plans which the council believes could save Wirral's Green Belt is set to begin later this month.

During a full council meeting on Monday (January 13) councillors will be asked to approve consultation on a document setting out the authority's preferred option for its Local Plan, which will set out how land should be used to meet tough housing targets over the next 15 years.

It will then be put out to public consultation, taking place from January 27 to March 23.

The plan's preferred option is to meet demand using only urban and previously developed – or brownfield – sites to meet its future housing and employment needs.

The housing requirement for Wirral is determined using Government guidelines and data and is calculated to be 12,000 new homes up to 2035.

The council says strategic regeneration across Wirral could be the key to ensuring the borough's Green Belt can be protected from development.

The council says key locations have been identified which, if developed to their maximum potential could play a key role in Wirral's future regeneration and protect Green Belt from development.

They are:

  • Hind Street, Birkenhead
  • Woodside, Birkenhead
  • Town Centre, Central Birkenhead
  • Wirral Waters, Wallasey/Birkenhead docks
  • Hamilton Park, adjoining Wirral Waters
  • Scotts Quay, Wallasey
  • Seacombe-New Brighton riverside corridor
  • New Brighton

Cllr Anita Leech, cabinet member for the Local Plan, said: "We listened to what people had to say in the Development Options Review last year and many people have been concerned at any risk to the Green Belt.

"This new draft document shows we are doing everything in our power to protect it.

"It identifies how we can use only previously developed sites and urban land to meet the housing needs target, and these regeneration areas will play a key role in helping us meet this target.

"Under the proposals key urban regeneration locations including Wirral Waters and areas in Birkenhead and Wallasey will play a crucial role in helping deliver the housing needed into the future.

"However, many of these sites are privately owned and the Council is working with landowners and developers to ensure all potential locations are made available and delivered.

"We are now relying on developers and key regeneration partners to deliver the new homes they have told us they can provide, because if they don’t it will place our precious Green Belt at risk."

While the sites highlighted are expected to play a key role in helping Wirral deliver its housing requirement the Local Plan consultation indicates many other, smaller brownfield and urban sites across Wirral which could also help the borough meet the targets.

The council said it is working closely with landowners and developers to ensure that urban and brownfield sites are made available and delivered.

However, should it not be possible to meet all the housing requirement using only urban and brownfield sites the council's legal advice is that during this consultation, known as Regulation 18, it must also consult on other potential options.

The document therefore includes two other options which would involve the use of Green Belt land.

A spokesman for the authority said: "Release of Green Belt is not and never would be the Council's preferred option.

"Council Officers will continue to undertake further intensive work to seek to increase the supply of deliverable and developable land in the urban areas."

If approved by councillors during the special meeting on Monday January 13, consultation will take place from Jan 27 to March 23.

You can register to have your comments included at www.wirral.gov.uk/localplan

Roadshows will take place during the consultation period and the documents are available from local libraries, where free IT facilities are also available. Full details of dates and times of consultation events will be made available shortly.

Commenting on the new proposals for Wirral's Local Plan, Conservative councillor for Clatterbridge Cherry Povall, said: "There will be relief that Labour has finally dropped their original plan to build 6,000 houses on Wirral's Green Belt but we must now prove that the public wants to regenerate our urban areas instead.

"Developers will be looking to challenge this – in order to avoid the costs of cleaning up the Borough’s Brownfield sites.

"The fight to save Wirral's Green Belt has now moved to the next stage – I urge everyone who wants to see Wirral’s Brownfield sites and urban areas regenerated, and our precious Green Belt protected, to respond to the consultation when it starts on January 13."

Wirral's Liberal Democrat leader Phil Gilchrist said: "If we can get this balance right, get investment in derelict sites, remove eyesores and get the homes people need in the right places, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

"If we cannot attract the right investment, create the decent environment needed for the future, and turn Wirral round we will have failed.

"To succeed we need funding from Government backed schemes to get Wirral on a better path.

"It could be a path to a fairer future, reversing years of decline.

"It could also secure and protect our best landscapes and countryside for years ahead."