At the meeting Harriett Baldwin intends to emphasise that it is Conservative policy to abolish the Regional Spatial Strategy. At the moment, the three South Worcestershire local councils are being forced by the government to implement a Regional Spatial Strategy which requires them to find room for 24,500 new homes, perhaps even 30,000 if the Nathaniel Lichfield report is accepted.
Harriett Baldwin will say, "I reject Gordon Brown's top-down, Stalinist approach to planning. A Conservative government will abolish regional planning, revoke all regional spatial strategies, and repeal the national planning guidance that relates to regional planning....We will enable councils to revise, in whole or in part, their existing Local Development Frameworks to take account of the abolition of the regional spatial strategies."
Harriett added, "These words offer some hope to the Worcestershire communities fighting the loss of green field sites. Gordon Brown has to call a General Election before June 2010. The current Local Development Plans expires in 2011. All we need now is a Conservative majority government."
Hallow District Cllr Jon Hickton will also attend the meeting, while Hallow County Councillor Alwyn Davies will send apologies as he has another commitment that evening."