Why is the Minister directing how Wirral Council prepares its Local Plan and what are councillors doing?

                          

Councillors on Wirral Council’s Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee will meet again (which is their third public meeting within a month) on Thursday afternoon to decide on a call-in regarding the last decision by Cabinet before Christmas last year on the Local Plan.

Twenty Conservative councillors have called-in the decision (with the Lead Signatory being Cllr Chris Blakeley pictured above).

The call-in is of the Cabinet decision made at a public meeting on the 17th December 2018 which can be watched below. The report for this item can be read on Wirral Council’s website.

Cabinet (Wirral Council) 17th December 2018 Wirral Local Plan Update Report

The makeup of Wirral Council’s Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee is 5 Conservative councillors, 1 Liberal Democrat councillor and 9 Labour councillors (with the Chair and Vice-Chair Labour).

There are numerous reasons given for the call-in which can be read here.

However in a recent development the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP on the 28th January 2019 wrote to Cllr Phil Davies using a formal legal power to direct how Wirral Council goes about the Local Plan process.

The agreed timetable between Wirral Council and the government for the Local Plan has not been followed and it appears that the government have lost patience over Wirral Council’s lack of progress.

Wirral Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee meets in public in Committee Room 1, Ground Floor, Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED on Thursday 7th February 2019 starting at 4.00 pm.

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