I am delighted that Bromsgrove Council have refused the planning application for a crematorium off New Inns Lane on the Birmingham/Bromsgrove border. As I said in the representations I put to Bromsgrove Council on this , there were just too many unanswered questions about how the extra traffic could have been accommodated on that road.
This planning application also highlighted the problems that can arise when developments are proposed near the borders of two different local authorities. If it had gone ahead, the crematorium was going to be built on land within the Bromsgrove boundary but a lot of the residents who would have been affected live in the Frankley area of my Birmingham constituency. Both Councils knew about the plan but it seems there was little or no thought given to the need to tell residents on the Birmingham side of the border what was going on. In fact, neither Council even took the initiative to inform me as the local MP for the area. It seems the original idea was for the planning application to be decided by officers alone, without elected representatives being involved. That was just not good enough.
Credit is due, therefore, to Councillor Peter McDonald and the Bromsgrove Labour team who made sure that the crematorium application was called in for consideration by Bromsgrove Council’s Planning Committee. By working together across the border, Labour teams in both Bromsgrove and Longbridge helped alert residents to what was happening and bought time for local people to have their say. Thanks are due to Peter Macdonald and his colleagues for their work on the Bromsgrove side of the border – as well as Councillors Andy Cartwright, Ian Cruise and Jess Phillips on the Birmingham side. Their support was also vital to me as the local MP when I made my representations about this planning application.
I hope both Birmingham and Bromsgrove Council will learn from this in future. Local people must be properly consulted when a planning application could have a significant effect on the lives of residents on both sides of the border.
