CAMPAIGNERS who have spent years battling a local authority’s ambition to build 11,000 new homes in the next 15 years mainly over open countryside say they are optimistic the target could be cut.

After almost 50 hours’ of examination by a government planning inspector, it remains unclear whether Darlington Borough Council will be told by the Planning Inspectorate to change its Local Plan.

The blueprint, which will shape where developments should be built until 2036, has attracted controversy since the previous Labour administration set its housebuilding target, which campaigners claim is far in excess of what will be needed.

The Local Plan was among the main issues fought over before the 2019 election, but the Conservative-run council has not sought to change the target or a proposal to build some 4,500 homes built on countryside north-east of the town at Skerningham.

The authority has insisted the area is needed to bring forward the amount of housing that is needed and that the development would be supported by new services such as schools, public transport and health facilities.

However, over the past five weeks residents and campaigners, supported by Darlington Green Party, have called for “rebalancing of the plan to preserve popular green spaces, wildlife habitats and a community woodland from the threat of house and road building”.

While the council argued the volume of construction is proportionate as well as economically and socially vital for the borough, campaigners told the inspector the proposals were at a “uncontrolled, inappropriate and damagingly unsustainable” scale.

Richard Cowen, of countryside charity CPRE told the inspector the government’s calculated housing need for the borough stood at 177 per year, but the council was aiming to get 490 new houses built annually.

He said while the government’s figure was not a limit, housebuilding should be similar to the government’s projected need unless there are exceptional circumstances. Mr Cowen said: “As a result, extra land may be lost under tarmac that would have a significant impact on biodiversity, particularly farmland birds, a matter that concerned Durham Bird Club.”

Green Party councillor Matthew Snedker said while it remained unclear whether the campaigners had won any of the arguments, but planning inspector William Fieldhouse had accepted their calculations over housing need. Cllr Snedker said it was a possibility that the Skerningham Garden Village proposal could be removed from the plan as a result. He said: “Mr Fieldhouse accepted that some of the proposed housebuilding sites could come out of the Local Plan and it still remain sound. We left no stone unturned in challenging the plans.”

The inspector is expected to publish his findings in the coming weeks before the Local Plan is adopted by the council in August or September.

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