In response to Prof. Gregg’s letter ‘Puzzling Plan’ in Globe July 11, I felt it important to address a number of the key points raised, and correct a few inaccuracies.

Prof. Gregg is correct when he repeats “there is no other option” than to consider building on the Green Belt, and his comment that “it is the wicked government’s fault” is one many will sympathise with.

The Council is required by law to produce a Local Plan. This document helps set planning guidelines, protect land and encourage development in equal measure.

As part of the Local Plan, local authorities must indicate where they see sufficient ‘suitable, available and deliverable’ land to deliver the borough’s housing needs. For Wirral, the government has determined our need is 800 new houses per year – 12,000 over the 15-year plan.

Prof. Green quotes from correspondence earlier this year when Cllr Phil Davies wrote to the then Secretary of State Sajid Javid detailing the number of extant planning permissions for homes in Wirral – 2,577 on Brownfield sites and 13,521 on Wirral Waters. This totals 16,098 as recorded in the letter to the Secretary of State not the 20,620 homes Prof. Gregg claims in his correspondence.

What the seemingly well-informed Prof. Gregg doesn’t know is that since the earlier exchange of letters, Wirral Water’s owners Peel Group have been in touch with the Government directly, and to Wirral Council’s surprise and frustration, have informed the new Secretary of State they only intend to build 2,700 new homes at Wirral Waters over the 15 year lifetime of the Local Plan.

Armed with this information, the Government now believes there is a sizeable gap of around 10,800 homes in our available land numbers. Despite our protestations about the actual need, the acknowledgement by the previous Secretary of State that Wirral “is not an area of high housing pressure”, and arguments about the type of homes and the special characteristics of Wirral – it is bound on three sides by water and 46% of it is Green Belt – the Government insists the Local Plan must be produced as instructed and if Wirral doesn’t deliver this, the Government will not hesitate to send in its inspectors to complete the task.

Prof. Gregg argues ‘conflating statutory plan duties with Green Belt release issues is arguably mischievous’ but he is wrong on many counts. A little more research by the Professor would have quickly revealed a Green Belt Review is a statutory component of the Local Plan and must be submitted to the Secretary of State for his approval, and if there is any mischief-making, it is surely Peel’s surprising decision to dramatically slash the number of homes it is willing to build

and the Government’s intransigence in sticking to a number it knows will force development on Wirral’s Green Belt.

Councillor George Davies, cabinet member for housing