Decision day for 9,000 new homes in south Lancaster

Green politics are a significant force in the city and tonight (August 25) councillors will be asked to decide if they support a £140m Government funding offer linked to major plans for more than 9,000 new homes south of Lancaster, complete with road, drainage, flooding and other infrastructure works.

The plans include elements designed to fit with the development of a new campus at Lancaster University and the proposed new Bailrigg Garden Village, plus other areas and links with the M6.

Overall, the South Lancaster Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) proposals raise issues around homes supply, urban and rural development, transport and the balance between local, regional and national power and decision-making.

The HIF decision been described as the biggest faced by Lancaster City Council in decades and will be discussed tonight at an official extraordinary meeting in Morecambe Town Hall.

The city council will also need to decide if any of tonight’s discussions are held in public or in private.

Under the law, some discussions by councillors and officers, such as finance, bids, business or contractual details, can be discussed in private without the public or news media. But a vote is required for what are known as ‘exempt’ items on the agenda.

Lancashire County Council and a government agency called Homes England both support the proposed South Lancaster HIF bid to support the development of new homes and other works.

Lancaster City Council tonight needs to agree or decline the HIF agreement plans, which would include a ‘roof tax’ on houses to repay money borrowed by the county council as part of the HIF proposals with national government at Westminster.

Sustainable growth issues are at the centre of the debate. At Lancaster City Council no single political party has a majority. But there is a significant green political presence. The city council has 10 Green councillors and five Eco-Socialist Independents.

The council leader is a Green and the deputy leader is an Eco-Soclialist. Elsewhere, Labour and Conservative councillors hold cabinet or committee positions. So, the city council reflects a spectrum of opinion.

In 2019, the city council declared a climate emergency and committed itself to a range of steps. These included setting up a Climate Change Cabinet Liaison Group with residents, young people and university experts, and starting a citizens’ assembly to help identify how the council’s activities can be made net-zero carbon by 2030.

Other measures included introducing climate change impact assessments, including carbon emission appraisals, reporting on pension funds and investments in the fossil fuel industry, and asking MPs to ensure the government provides powers, resources and funding to make this possible.

Green Coun Caroline Jackson, the leader of Lancaster City Council, recently told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that there is an identified need for housing in the district. She emphasised it was important for residents that they get ‘the right homes in the right places’ offering accessibility, quality and sustainability.

She said the city council was grappling with local and national agendas. Some people may believe the Government was pushing a ‘developers’ charter’ and taking away local people’s opportunity to have their say, she said.

“We need to have conversations about the best way to achieve the right homes in the right areas,” she said at the time.

Deputy leader, Eco-Socialist Coun Kevin Frea, also said there are some big issues to be decided. He also acknowledged various concerns which include future health provision such as doctors’ surgeries.

Some critics of the current HIF proposal say it makes a mockery of climate change concerns and ambitions. Among the critics is the Lancaster Youth For Environment (LYFE) group, which held an online meeting last week to raise its concerns.

Millie Prosser, a Lancaster University student and LYFE founder, said: “We are a youth-based environmental action group. We were founded by the youth of Lancaster, led by Lea Ruegg and Rosie Mills, following Lancaster City Council’s climate emergency declaration in 2019.

“We worked hard to promote the declaration and get signatures. Some of our founding members spoke passionately at the declaration council meeting. We have gone on to organise regular Friday’s for Future school strikes and environmental outreach events. We are trying to hold the council accountable for its climate declaration.”

At last week’s LYFE meeting, Coun Frea and former Labour MP Alan Simpson were among the speakers.

Referring to a recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change, Mr Simpson told the event: “If we want to avoid really serious climate breakdown, we have to engage in transformative thinking on a scale that is unprecedented. In practical terms, it requires the UK to cut our carbon emissions by 10 per cent a year throughout this entire decade.

“We can’t go on running with notions of conventional growth and recovery. We can’t go on assuming that we’ll just build a whole raft of new housing without carbon consequences.”

He asked: ” Is this a proposal that has been reached after looking at all of the existing properties in Lancaster that could be reclaimed, refurbished or re-purposed without incurring the carbon costs of new construction?

“If this plan is, in effect, building 9,000 houses within commuting distance of Preston and Manchester then ‘you’re just pouring carbon problems onto the lap of all of those who follow,” he said.

He suggested Lancaster could learn from ideas such as 15 minutes cities, being considered in Newcastle and elsewhere. These encourage people to live and work locally because what they need is within 15 minutes’ walk.

However others believe the South Lancaster HIF plan is of value. Lancaster City Council officers say the HIF deal could assist a host of city council planning and climate change ambitions. They are recommending councillors to approve the HIF agreement tonight.

Councillors will face two options tonight, according to the agenda papers. Option one is to enter into the collaboration agreement with Lancashire County Council and accept £140 million infrastructure investment for the South Lancaster growth corridor.

The advantages of this would be improvements to road network capacity and congestion at Galgate, delivery of public transport infrastructure, new homes, delivery of the Bailrigg garden community plans which will Include walk-able neighbourhoods, reducing car reliance and carbon emissions, and designs to mitigate local flooding.

Risks have been considered too, council officers say. The agenda states: “This is a large scale, strategic long-term development programme with many layers of risk. These risks are common to most projects of this nature and have been evaluated by the HIF business case.”

Option two for councillors is not to enter into a collaboration agreement with Lancashire County Council and to decline the £140m infrastructure investment.

Tonight’s agenda suggests there would be no discernible advantages in rejecting the offer when compared to the direct level of HIF investment from Homes England and it’s context within the city council’s local plan and other policies.

Disadvantages from rejecting the HIF offer would be uncertainty around the council’s inability to fund infrastructure in south Lancaster and the need to undertake an urgent review of the Local Plan.

Rejection would also leave the city council ‘vulnerable to developer challenge in planning applications’. This could lead to a ‘planning by appeal’ pressure on day-to-day planning applications, which could have a considerable financial impact

Declining the bid could also lead to vulnerabilities of the city’s Local Plan with the proliferation of unplanned, incremental development across the district. These would undermine the city council’s ability to deliver climate change objectives around carbon emissions when compared to planned development, the agenda advice states.

Rejecting the HIF bid would also risk significant damage to its reputation in the working relationships with Lancashire County Council, the Government and Homes England, which may impact on future strategic investment programmes, the agenda adds.

Some campaigners who object to the HIF proposal say the city council should seek a delay and call for more consideration to be given to the plan.

Councillors will weigh the pros and cons of different arguments tonight in Morecambe.

August 30 has been set as the deadline for Lancaster City Council to support the funding agreement between Lancashire County Council and Homes England.