Confusion surrounds the fate of the region’s housing blueprint after a council leader insisted it could still be revived despite being declared dead in the water just days ago. West of England metro mayor Dan Norris announced last week that the spatial development strategy (SDS) had collapsed.
Labour’s Mr Norris blamed the failure on South Gloucestershire Council Conservative leader Cllr Toby Savage for “walking out” of talks on the masterplan, which sets out broad locations for tens of thousands of new homes, along with jobs, over the next 20 years. Cllr Savage denied the claims, branding them “false”, and hit back accusing the head of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) of a “desperate tactic to get his secretly developed plan approved”.
With discussions seemingly at an impasse over a proposed 37,000 homes for South Gloucestershire by 2041, Mr Norris wrote to the Government to say agreement could not be reached and all SDS work had ceased to save any more taxpayers’ money. But at a full council meeting of South Gloucestershire Council on Wednesday night (May 18), Cllr Savage said the document was not defunct just because the metro mayor said so.
