Campaigners believe they have fought off plans for an estate of as many as 6,000 homes called “Bordesley Park” between Redditch and Alvechurch.
The recommendations of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy also ease the threat of Birmingham expanding into Hopwood and Wythall with up to 5,000 homes.
There will still be thousands of new homes allocated across Bromsgrove district, but council chiefs hope that they will now be able to see them built in places that benefit the town and villages rather than to extend Redditch.
Redditch will also have to use up its “Areas of Development Restraint” [ADRs – green belt land already designated as future development sites] to build at least 4,000 homes first – despite having asked that its ADRs revert to green belt.
Bromsgrove council leader Roger Hollingworth said: “I hope that Bordesley and Rowney Green will now be safe for some considerable time.”
If adopted, the strategy calls for the designation of Redditch as a Settlement of Significant Development (SSD) to be scrapped. This would remove further pressure for homes to serve Redditch being built across the fields of Bromsgrove.
The strategy also leans towards future expansion of Redditch being to the south-east towards Studley rather than “lessening the arguably more significant gap towards Alvechurch”. But the report “reluctantly” concludes that development around Studley could not be recommended until traffic problems along the A435 there had been addressed.
It adds: “We must conclude that provision should be made for around 3,000 dwellings for Redditch in Bromsgrove district… We agree, however, with Bromsgrove Council that the choice of locality around the boundary of Redditch should be locally determined.”
It is hoped much of this development will be along the A448 Bromsgrove highway corridor and not in Bordesley.
The report also endorses Bromsgrove’s recommendation for 4,000 homes to be allocated (on top of the 3,000 from Redditch’s allocation), which could be accommodated on the district’s current ADRs and in affordable housing built using “rural exceptions policies at smaller settlements”.
The report still has to be ratified by the Secretary of State and then not be scrapped by an incoming Conservative Government, as has been threatened.