Stratford councillor Louis Adam responds to recent comments from MP Sir Jeremy Wright on the South Warwickshire Local Plan.

I'm disappointed to read the comments from Sir Jeremy Wright MP regarding the South Warwickshire Local Plan (SWLP). The picture painted is far from reality.

In a show of great cross-party, and cross-authority working, Stratford on Avon District Council (SDC) and Warwick District Council (WDC) have been developing a plan that sets out, not only the location of new settlements and housing around our towns, but critically the infrastructure and amenities needed to support residents into the future.

Unfortunately, Conservative short-termism appears to be trying to pass the buck, leaving it to future councils to solve the problems we face now.

We need infrastructure that will be able to support the growth we will see over coming decades. That cannot be planned for, much less delivered, if a local plan doesn't set long term goals, like the SWLP is doing up to 2050.

We also need to be able to take a local view, to deliver for our residents who take pride in our area. The Labour Government has been instrumental in the challenges the Plan is facing, by forcing housing targets to shoot up and having the timeframe for a new planning system being set in stone by Westminster.

That's why it's so important to get a local plan through now, to allow development to be delivered as sustainably as possible, but also to make sure our local voice is heard for the generations to come.

Without a local plan, we are at the will of speculative developers and won't be able to secure the benefits to the communities under the current national planning framework; this doesn't seem to be mentioned by those opposing the SWLP and who don't offer a credible alternative.

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It's not a perfect document by nature of circumstance, but I believe this is a good plan that will deliver for our communities over a timeframe that allows us to build more naturally, with the critical schools, health services, and utilities that we rely on.