The Borough Council's using 'fortune teller figures' to justify taking over 1500 acres of land out of greenbelt, and plans to build homes for neighbouring authorities who do not need them and unwanted 'ghost' warehouses in entirely unsuitable locations.

Residents of Bickerstaffe and beyond have been shocked by the WLBC’s Local Plan proposals which call for the building of around 16,000 houses in West Lancashire and the creation of a logistics park on the green belt at Junction 3 of the M58.

Its Residents’ Action group and the local Parish Council have condemned the plans as being unjustified and indefensible and that the lack of evidence relating to the need for these developments makes the plan no more valid than a 'fortune teller’s forecast'.

WLBC’s current local plan is working extremely well and is set to run until 2027, but rather than undertake a 'light touch' review of the plan, it proposes to bin the existing plan in favour of a huge new proposal which will destroy 1583 acres of prime agricultural land and see the building of 16,000 houses and several huge warehouses in the heart of a rural community.

And how does the council justify its plans?

Quite simply, by stating that the houses and warehouses 'might' be needed by Liverpool and Sefton sometime before 2050. There is no evidence base which exists beyond 2037 – any planning beyond this date is pure crystal ball forecasting - indeed the skills of the fortune teller involved in creating the plan must be called into question as WLBC proposes to build warehousing for the Liverpool City Region when Liverpool’s own plans state that they have sufficient land to meet all their storage and distribution needs.

WLBC is also justifying the 'need' for 16,000 houses by proposing that Sefton will have an unmet housing requirement in around 20 years’ time – clearly Sefton’s soothsayers need to work harder as they themselves have not yet identified this unmet need which WLBC proposes, generously, to meet by destroying prime agricultural land.

Add to all this the fact that local secondary schools are all over subscribed and the plan does not include increased provision, the council’s own Transport Assessment has concluded that the road network will be 'compromised' by the plans meaning that massive congestion is inevitable and that no increased healthcare provision is envisaged for this huge new population, and it is clear that this is an ill-designed and unworkable proposal.

The National Planning Policy Framework which governs Local Council planning states that developments such as those proposed by WLBC should be phased, but it seems that West Lancashire councillors feel that the rules do not apply to them and propose to release all the land at once, opening the floodgates for developers keen to build on easier and cheaper virgin agricultural land than to redevelop brownfield sites across the district.

Pity poor Skelmersdale where regeneration will be a distant memory as money and resources are diverted to simpler, prestigious new builds. Even the proposed Skelmersdale railway station is just that – a proposal. Nothing signed, no legal commitment – as concrete as the castle in the air which forms the basis for the plans.

There is but one winner in this whole debacle – Lord Derby’s estate* which own the vast majority of the green belt land which will be decimated to fulfil the fictitious needs of other authorities, and which will see land values skyrocket once this becomes prime building land – pity also the tenant farmers forced out of their homes and farms after years of loyalty to their fabulously wealthy landlord. A sorry state of affairs.

WLBC are currently consulting on the plans and the public have until 13th December to make their views known. There is huge opposition to the proposals across the area. Given the council’s preference for astrology over accuracy and fortune telling over facts, we suggest they cast runes or commission horoscopes to reveal their futures at the ballot box...

In the meantime the residents will continue to fight these fundamentally flawed proposals. To find out more about WLBC’s Local Plan visit www.westlancs.gov.uk or call 01695 585194; you only have until December 13th to object.

*QLocal's Roger Blaxall has approached Lord Derby for a comment but so far he has refused any requests for an interview.