I promised to keep you in touch with the way the council is working on our Local Plan. We held a series of public consultations through the summer asking for your views on options for meeting the additional housing requirement imposed on us. The planning team will present its findings to full council on November 13, seeking approval for the next stage in the process. This will enable us to produce a revised draft Local Plan. As far as possible this will be in line with your wishes and the council’s sustainable development strategy.

The government wants to build 1.5 million homes by the end of its term in 2029. It requires all district councils to produce a Local Plan to fulfil this ambition. Under the previous Conservative government’s National Planning Policy Framework, we were already having trouble finding some acceptable way to build their allocation of over 6,000 houses in the Forest. Now, under Labour’s new revised housing formula, more than doubling our allocation, we are faced with the seemingly impossible problem of building approximately 13,000 new homes in the next twenty years.

Somehow, we are supposed to find the space and infrastructure to support them. But that is what we have been asked to do.We are faced with a dilemma not of our making. If we do not allocate 13,200 houses in the Local Plan it will be rejected by the Planning Inspectorate next year. If that happens, we will be unable to properly control many aspects of planning in the Forest of Dean.

Without an approved Local Plan, higher levels of government can disregard our wishes and local concerns, while developers will be able to successfully progress speculative proposals.

The government has chosen to ignore the advice of countryside charities, local authorities and even the construction industry. We do not have the labour, the expertise or the resources in the UK to build this number of properties at scale in the time available. In our view, certainly not in the Forest.

So where do we build the houses Government demands of us? We are constrained by regulations affecting the Statutory Forest and by the geography of our hills, rivers and valleys, by our floodplains and National Landscapes. This leaves us with a big problem. How can we ensure that we build in places that work for us now and that are sustainable in the long term for our children, our grandchildren and the planet? Our choices are limited and by no means ideal. Inevitably, compromises will need to be made.

And yet, it is estimated that there are one million homes for which planning permission has been granted but which are still unbuilt. This is often because developers ‘bank’ land, awaiting a rise in its value. Meanwhile, there are 722,000 homes in England which are unoccupied. On top of that there are 600,000 second homes and over 200,000 holiday rentals that are partly occupied. The government has failed to address these shortcomings in the system and in its planning. Imagine what could be done if they tried.