No housing at Westbridge Park, says Cabinet

Stafford Borough Council’s Cabinet said that housing would not be built at Westbridge Park at their meeting on Thursday 4th October – and one Cabinet member has called the Keep Westbridge Park Green petition “misleading”.

However, town councillor Rob Kenney, who launched the petition last week, said he didn’t want to see any kind of development at Westbridge Park – and that the Stafford Borough Local Plan paves the way for a retail development at the park.

Over 750 people have signed the ‘Keep Westbridge Park Green’ petition online and hundreds more have been adding their names to paper petitions at pubs, shops and cafes around the town. The petition was launched by town councillor Rob Kenney after Westbridge Park was identified as a site for ‘mixed-use development’ in the Stafford Borough Local Plan.

Stafford Borough Council’s Cabinet member for planning and regeneration Frances Beatty told the BBC: “There’s absolutely no discussion about Westbridge Park being for homes. There’s a lot of misleading propoganda being put about. Even if part of Westbridge Park was to go, it would only be a small part and the rest would be compensated.”

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Rob Kenney strongly denied that the petition is misleading. He said: “It is not misleading because it says ‘keep Westbridge Park green’, and retail – food and non-food outlets – are planned.”

Cllr Kenney said he welcomed the Cabinet’s decision that housing was not an option for Westbridge Park  but stressed that he didn’t want to see any kind of development at Westbridge Park.

“On the down side,” he said, “the petition is not just about housing but is about mixed development, as stated in the Borough Plan. Unfortunately they didn’t make a statement that other developments like retail or hotels would not take place.”

Click here to sign the petition.