West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin today responded to local councils' call for additional housing sites in the South Worcestershire Development Plan. The local plan already includes room for over 23,000 homes in an area with a population of approximately 300,000. In contrast Wyre Forest and Bromsgrove both plan for 4,000 new homes and Birmingham, a city of one million people, calls for only 51,000. Harriett commented: "The Planning Inspector has asked the three councils to identify areas for extra housing, ignoring the democratically approved plan with its already ambitious growth plans. "I have written to the SWDP management asking them to apply fresh thinking to this issue. We already have an ambitious plan for growth in our area, with room for three towns the size of Pershore "We can't build on flood plains, our Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Conservators' land and we need our prime agricultural land. "For example, they may want to contact some of the smaller villages which actually want to add new houses to their communities but are prevented by current regulations and to look at building individual homes in places where there are no objections. "But above all, I think it is wrong that south Worcestershire is being asked to take more homes than other parts of Worcestershire and half as many as the whole of Metropolitan Birmingham."