Stroud District Green Party has welcomed the “robust” response of Stroud District Council to the government inspectors who proposed withdrawal of the Local Plan last month.
The letter from SDC addresses in detail every aspect of the issues the inspectors raised about the Plan, says the council is “profoundly disappointed” at the inspectors’ continued advice to withdraw the Plan, and asks them to reconsider.
It emphasises that the conclusions the inspectors reached are flawed in many respects, the inspectors having “fundamentally misunderstood the factual position”. It accuses them of taking into account a legally irrelevant consideration in one example, and of misunderstanding the government’s policy approach.
Cllr Chloe Turner said: “The purpose of a Local Plan is to specify, through gathering all the evidence, undertaking surveys, and assessing transport issues and housing need, where new development should take place. The Local Plan process allows for community engagement, an evidence-based assessment of the options, and consideration of the needs of our local area.
“Without a Local Plan, it would be over to developers to determine what is built and where it goes, with limited power for the Council to challenge proposals for building in unsuitable locations.
“As the chief executive of SDC points out in her incisive and robust letter, many of the inspectors’ objections simply do not stand up to scrutiny. There are areas where the inspectors have clearly not fully understood what is a complex situation, and other areas where they have misinterpreted and misapplied their own policies. This is unacceptable when the issue is so vitally important to our communities. We want to know, in detail, what the inspectors did and didn’t find to be sound about the Plan.”
Cllr Turner thanked the local Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs for their support for the draft Local Plan for Stroud District, especially Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, who spoke at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (March 12).
She said: “Sir Geoffrey pointed out that the housing Government wants to see built in our area cannot take place without the necessary transport infrastructure, and called on the Prime Minister to make infrastructure investment a priority. I hope the Prime Minister and Housing Minister will listen and support our efforts, so that we can finally get the Local Plan over the line.”
The letter from SDC can be seen here:
SDC Response to the Inspectors, 3 March 2025
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown’s comment can be heard at 23 mins 40 secs here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00290xc/prime-ministers-questions-12032025)