The announcement to delay the final decision on the South West Regional Spatial Strategy has been welcomed by Bath Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster.

The decision has been reached after a High Court judgment on the East of England RSS concluded that reasonable alternatives had not been properly tested. Now the South West’s plans have to be reviewed to see whether they may also fail this test.

Commenting, Don said,

“This is a real shot across the bows for the government’s barking mad housing proposals. Although the RSS is not dead, it gives us even more opportunity to get these unreasonable targets altered.

“Earlier this year I revealed that the Examination in Public visit to Bath was merely a 45 minute whistle-stop tour, and it seems this was the case in the East of England as well. The whole process has been flawed from start to finish.

“I will continue to fight for more appropriate targets. We do need new homes, especially affordable ones, but we should not be destroying green belt land to build to a barking mad Whitehall-imposed target.”