News

Residents of Cressage

Cressage Parish Council has come under a great deal of criticism about their response to the current Draft Local Plan prepared by Shropshire Council.

The Parish Council feel they need to address the misinformation that has been widely circulated recently by various means.

Cressage has been Open Countryside for some time now but looking back before 2009, Cressage was a development village in the former SABC Local Plan (2001).

Shropshire Council had to comply with government policies to meet the increasing housing needs of the County. This was set out in a written instruction from the Secretary of State in 2015. To satisfy these obligations, they began an early update to their Local Plan. During this process, parishes were advised the designation of their settlements would be based on the services and facilities they offered. So, Parish Councils have no choice as to whether their settlements are designated as “Open Countryside” or “Community Hubs”. Depending on the local services and facilities in a settlement, they are given a points score. Cressage scored 50 points which is sufficient to become a Hub as it only needs a score of 48 points.

The Hub status for Cressage does reflect the position in our updated 2017 Parish Plan. Our Parish Plan identified a need for some limited development within the village of Cressage. Our Parish Plan looked only 5 years ahead and suggested a modest amount of development. The Shropshire Council Draft Local Plan looks 22 years ahead and so, it suggests a higher level of development.

In April 2018, a Planning Policy Officer met with members of the Parish Council and walked the village to look at possible sites for development. At an earlier meeting, the Planning Officer was directed by residents to look at the Cressage Parish Plan where 57% of residents wanted some limited development of 20 homes over 5 years within the village. This information in the Parish Plan, supports the designation of Cressage as a potential Hub based on its services and facilities. The longer timeframe for the Local Plan simply means more housing is now identified than our Parish Plan suggests.

There can only be open market housing development within the development boundary drawn around any Hub. Open Countryside lies outside the development boundary and limits development to single site exception plots, affordable housing possibly with a small element of market housing (cross subsidy schemes) and barn conversions.

In January 2019 Cressage Parish Council called a Local Plan Review Meeting to explain to residents about the proposal from Shropshire Council to classify Cressage as a Hub. Around 75 members of the community attended this meeting. At the meeting it was explained that Shropshire Council had agreed a policy to use a points system for services and facilities to classify Hub settlements. The scoring of some services and facilities in Cressage was questioned by both residents and the Parish Council, but Cressage still had enough points to be classified as a Hub.

For information on this classification system please see the Parish Council website.

The Local Plan is now in its final stages of consultation. As already indicated, it is NOT possible for the Parish Council to request that Cressage be classified as “Open Countryside”. This decision was made by Shropshire Council at an earlier stage of the process and can only be challenged on the points score for our village services and facilities. In their initial response to that part of the Local Plan Consultation, the Parish Council accepted the decision to identify Cressage as a Hub, based on our Parish Plan.

Ultimately the final decision on the status of Cressage will be made by the Planning Inspectorate. They will make their decision after they have examined all the evidence from Shropshire Council and heard all the responses from the Parish Councils and ALL residents who have responded to the consultation.

The Parish Council agree to be a Hub because the village will have a very tight boundary drawn around it. We would point out that there will be an element of affordable housing in any development within the boundary. ALL the remaining land and villages in the Parish outside that boundary will be “Open Countryside”. This will limit speculative development in the Parish over the period to 2038.

The final stage of the Local Plan is to determine whether the Plan is “sound" which will test whether it is based on a clear strategy, justified by evidence, reasonably achievable and consistent with national policy. If you wish to, you are still able to write to Shropshire Council with your comments as an individual saying why the Draft Local Plan does not meet these tests for being found “sound”.

The above map shows the village of Cressage with two sites identified on it and with the development boundary drawn around it as a thick black line. There will be NO open market housing development outside of this boundary. All land and villages outside the boundary will be classified as “Open Countryside”. The Local Plan intends that development will only take place on sites CES005 and CES006 if the Plan is accepted by the Planning Inspectorate.

n intends that development will only take place on sites CES005 and CES006 if the Plan is accepted by the Planning Inspectorate.