CHANGES to how the Welsh Government defines available housing land could seriously threaten the Vale of Glamorgan, a Plaid Cymru councillor has warned.

Plaid Cymru have called for a reduction in housing targets to save green spaces, and Councillor Ian Johnson, a long time vocal opponent of the Vale council’s Local Development Plan (LDP), has warned that changes could lead to massive over-development.

The LDP recommends building almost 10,000 houses in the Vale between 2011 and 2026, despite Welsh Government housing statistics estimating that only 5,600 are actually needed.

To prevent speculative planning applications, the Vale has argued that, under existing rules, they have given enough planning permission to meet a five year supply of houses, based on the average number of houses built since 2004. This is called the Joint Housing Land Availability Study.

New guidance from the Welsh Government will ignore this evidence until the LDP is passed, at which point the Vale would need to give thousands more houses planning permission in order to meet their own targets.

Barry Councillor Ian Johnson said: “When it comes to planning, it seems that the Labour-run Welsh Government and Vale Council are hopeless, both moving the goalposts and nobody taking the responsibility for making a mess of it all.

“The housing need statistics published by Welsh Government last year are for 5,600 houses in the Vale over 15 years, but the Vale Council insist on planning for 9,900.

“In the first three years of the LDP period, from 2011 to 2014, only 449 have been built, but the Welsh Government are now changing the rules on house-building to ignore the evidence-base until the LDP is in place.

“Once the LDP is in place, we will have to meet the LDP target of 9,900, and that means building nearly 800 houses a year across the Vale from now on, when we are currently building 150.

“We have to ask who they think they are building for?

“Plaid Cymru believes that the Vale Council urgently needs to review the number of houses in the Local Development Plan to recognise the actual housing need, which is thousands less than they think, and to provide resources where possible to ensure affordable and local housing for Vale residents.

“If the council does as Plaid Cymru suggest, and reduce the housing target then there are many greenfields across the whole Vale that could be saved.”