The hugely negative response by local residents to last year’s public consultation exercise and their poor results in May’s Borough Elections has forced Labour to scrap their ridiculous proposals for a 30 year Local Plan.

WLBC’s Labour Cabinet are considering the attached report at their meeting later this week.

The Cabinet will accept the recommendations put forward by the Local Plan Cabinet Working Group at their meeting last week. This will mean the cessation of the existing Local Plan Review and the dissolution of the existing Cabinet Working Group.

However, it is also recommended that a new Local Plan Cabinet Working Group be set up to start preparing evidence for a new 15 year Local Plan.

What the Report does not disclose is the financial cost to the council tax payers of West Lancashire; Labour have spent over £300k on gathering an information base, mainly reports from expensive outside consultants,to try and justify their now defunct 30 year New Local Plan that sought to build 16,000 houses on some 1,600 acres of the greenbelt.

A new information base will now have to be commissioned at a cost of a further £300k; commenting on the debacle, Cllr David Westley, Conservative Group Leader, said: “This issue was perhaps the biggest in my 17 years as a borough councillor and the fight represented the largest campaign mounted by the Conservative Group.

"It resulted in a real victory for common sense and local democracy.

"The Public were overwhelmingly opposed to a new 30 year Local Planthat sought to build houses to meet Merseyside’s housing need on 1,600 acres of prime agricultural land.

"Labour have finally admitted defeat, yet their folly has wasted £300k that could have been spent improving essential frontline services.”

Now let me see........ the Conservative Party....... yes I remember them, they use to be quite prominent some time ago, nothing much of interest to say for the past five years though...... I believe they where in charge during the early years of the Edge Hills unfettered and uncontrolled expansion of the University to the detriment of the local community of Ormskirk leading to large swathes of family homes being lost and handed over to none tax paying Landlords.

Both these party’s are totally responsible for the state the town now finds itself in. Residents should keep this in mind at the next elections and get rid of these self serving political parties and vote in independent counsellors who WILL put residents first and stop the wholesale conversation of our town into an extension of the Edge Hill campus.


Shame on both these parties who have consistently let down the residents of Ormskirk and continue to wast our, that’s the tax paying residents, money on party political ideology.

And who deputy leader of the conservatives in West Lancs when edge hill was given permission to expand ? And who approved most of the hmo conversations of the old family houses ?
Any guesses

Originally Posted by jester01

And who deputy leader of the conservatives in West Lancs when edge hill was given permission to expand ? And who approved most of the hmo conversations of the old family houses ?
Any guesses

And the self same deputy leader had the good sense to leave a political whip driven party and go independent, however it should be said, the same policy was fully adopted by the following incumbents of WLBC and that would be the Labour Party.

That’s why we are in need of Independent councillors to help temper the excesses of both the main parties, both of which have consistently let RESIDENTS down and continue to do so by turning Ormskirk into an extension of Edge Hill campus.

Whatever Edge Hill Wants, Edge Hill Gets at whatever cost to the local communities tax payers. WLBC consistently tell us its for the benefit of Ormskirk, not much evidence of this and how’s the WLBC venture into being town centre Landlords going?


Lastly how much more of our money are the Labour Party going to wast on yet more consultation fees with their totally inept plans which never lead anywhere? It’s not quantity we need! It’s Quality which is sadly lacking!