Action Briefing Jun 2003 - Jul 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

West Midlands News

The West Midlands RPG

In February the ODPM produced the Community Plan - top of the tree in the planning hierarchy. This and its West Midlands daughter document can be found at www.odpm.gov.uk. The major thrust has been for the four growth zones in the SouthEast.

Following the public examination into our RPG, the ODPM should have responded to our panel report early in 2003 but, a year on, we are still waiting. As the timetable for the Secretary of State’s proposed changes has slipped, we now hope to publish later in the summer. For more info visit the Government Office for the West Midlands website www.go-wm.gov.uk/rpg/.

Despite the delay, our RPG is certain to become a Regional Spatial Strategy on April 1st 2004, after the Planning Bill gets assent in the autumn. We are still having to push hard for a right to be heard at the RSS stage but we will have to be vigilant as once we have an RSS then the growing importance of sub-regions will become apparent.

We will have 12 weeks to formulate our response to the ODPM and given the gung ho approach to the SouthEast we can expect some major conflicts over land use and resources.

Chris Crean