'Kids in Birkenhead just as entitled to green space as Hoylake'

Plans to build 12,000 more homes in urban areas of Wirral risk eroding green space in the East of the borough, it has been claimed.

Lib Dem councillor Stuart Kelly has spoken out after the council released its draft local plan for future building in the borough.

Speaking at a planning committee, Cllr Kelly said: “Kids in the north end [of Birkenhead] are just as entitled to play on a piece of green space as kids in Hoylake.”

Wirral Council’s draft Local Plan has pledged to protect the green belt, but this means most of the 12,000 new homes will be built in highly concentrated sites in Birkenhead and Wallasey.

The areas highlighted in red are where the 12,000 homes will be built over the next 15 years (Copyright Unknown)

Cllr Kelly, the head of the council’s planning committee, was worried this could result in insufficient green space in these parts of Wirral.

He added: “We need to understand what density and intensification (the strategy of building homes in urban areas) means.

“I’m not sure we fully understand what it means for communities to the east of the borough at the moment.”

Developers are obliged to include a certain amount of green space within new developments, but this space can often be quite far away from the main estate and inaccessible for children and those who do not drive.

Several councillors expressed concern about this, but Labour councillor Steve Foulkes noted that play areas within estates can often attract complaints from residents also, due to noise for instance.

Nonetheless, Cllr Kelly wanted the Local Plan to include more power for councillors to hold developers to account and ensure they had adhered to promises made on green space.

Cllr Kelly said: “I can think of a number of developments where they have put an odd scraggy bush here and there and [it has] died and now it’s too late.

Hind Street, in Birkenhead, is one of the sites which will be used for houses in the Local Plan (Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)

“There are others where the plan says a tree is to be retained and they end up chopping the damn thing down and it turns out we’ve got no powers to prevent that.”

Green councillor Steve Hayes was keen to push "active travel" higher up the agenda, asking the council to prioritise public transport and cycling over cars in its Local Plan.

But Cllr Foulkes insisted this was already the direction the Local Plan was heading in.

The Local Plan will now go to a public consultation, which runs from January 27 to March 23.