03/09/2026
At the last full Cotswold District Council (CDC) meeting all the Conservative Councillors voted against the proposed new Local Plan. As you might know the current Labour Government are imposing ridiculously high house building targets for our council area over the next 17 years for an area of which 80% is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) on which there are a large number of planning restrictions. This has forced the LibDem Administration to propose the building of extremely large numbers of houses in those areas not in the ANOB, however inappropriate.
The argument for the proposals is that without a suitable housing allocation, developers will have a free pass to build where they want if CDC doesnāt have a sufficient number of allocated sites. However CDC is to be disbanded in a year and subsumed into the new Unitary County Council for which āshadow electionsā are to be held next May. Given the current state of the housing market, it is questionable as to the developers appetite for new sites, however if this plan passes the allocations will be as written in stone, and the Unitary Council will take it as is. If however it was rejected, the Unitary Council, in writing itās own plan, would have to discuss the appropriateness of these and possibly take a number off our area to put it where there are more jobs and better infrastructure.
We, as Conservatives, believe the short term risk is better than the long term pain, especially given there will be a General Election by 2030 and hopefully a government which understands the Shires better and actually cares.
