Britain's second biggest city given green light to become even bigger

A development plan for Birmingham, Britain's biggest provincial city outside London, was endorsed Thursday by the national government's planning inspectorate.

It opens the door for the building of 51,100 additional homes and over 300 hectares of employment land.

A planning inspector supported the release of Green Belt land for the provision of 6,000 houses in Langley and a 71 hectare strategic employment site at Peddimore. He also concluded there is no need for further Green Belt release after 2031.

The inspector confirmed that the housing requirement for the city is 89,000 houses and has endorsed the council's approach to dealing with the shortfall.

Waheed Nazir, acting strategic director for economy at Birmingham City Council, said: "Having the Birmingham Development Plan endorsed by the planning inspector is a major success and means we can get on with the job of providing much-needed housing and employment opportunities in the city."

But the decision has been attacked by campaigners wanting to stop a sprawl of housing and commercial development onto green space in rural areas around the city.

The decision is likely to trigger a major national debate over meeting Britain's growing housing needs by encroaching into rural areas and green land, protected over many years by successive governments under green belt policies.

In his report, the planning inspector said there were exceptional circumstances to justify alterations to the Green Belt boundary in order to allocate the sustainable urban extensions. But proposals for the development of the North Worcestershire Golf Club were rejected by the inspector. Endit