03/10/2026
HOW MANY MORE HOUSES CAN THE FOREST OF DEAN DISTRICT TAKE?
(This post provides additional information and opinion to the article in my Focus newsletter which I'll be delivering with the help of a team of volunteers to over 5,000 houses this month in the Newent area.. Please let me know if you would like to join the team. You can choose your patch from a street, an estate, a village or a country lane,)
The government requires all Local Planning Authorities to get a certain number of houses built in their areas. If too few planning applications are given consent, then developers gain the upper hand and build where they want.
Our UK housing market is developer-driven, and the planning system, although it allows for a degree of influence from local people through a Local Plan, devised by its elected representatives and steered by local consultation, strays out of local control very easily in respect to what and where new housing is built.
Government housing targets have been missed for over fifty years and that is one of the reasons that house prices are sky-high and rents, both social and private, are unaffordable for many people. Social or council housing is in short supply. Waiting lists are long. If you are of a certain age, you may remember the massive increase in council house estates that grew up in the 1950s and 60s. Since then, targets have been missed, year on year, decade by decade. The funding and expertise to build council houses is largely lost.
This Labour government is trying to fix all this. But it can't be done without careful planning. The Forest of Dean District Council (FoDDC) was given only a few months to come up with places to build an extra 7,000 more houses. The easy option was to revive the idea of a new settlement at Churcham and do a U-turn on the potential of another new settlement at Glynchbrook, close to the M50 junction near Redmarley.
The outcry against such short-term thinking was huge and caused the Green Party-led administration at the FoDDC to back off and start again. Had they listened to councillors in other groups, they might not have made that mistake.
It is my opinion that much more should have been done to challenge the government's figures for the FoDDC. To all intents and purposes, the majority of the district is an island. The crossings at the Severn and Wye are highly congested at rush hour, with no immediate prospect of improvement. We have one railway station serving the centre of the district at Lydney, which is little more than a countryside halt, with irregular train services to the places people need to get to for work and study. The routes to the north are not served by major roads and the M50 junctions are accessed largely through narrow lanes and B roads.
We need far, far more jobs in the FoD district but that is not something that the Local Plan can do much about other than allocate sites for employment. That's a big topic for another time!
Meanwhile, there is the possibility of a shorter Local Plan which would allow the planners to find more sustainable sites for a smaller quantity of houses. However, the overall figures have not changed, and I think they need to!
Without better infrastructure and far more local jobs, increasing the number of houses by the amount the government dictates in our district over the next twenty years, simply won't work.
