A senior councillor says he cannot support plans to allocate more than 3,000 homes to Green Belt sites in his ward.

Cllr Duncan Walker, cabinet member for adult social care at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said he had 'significant concerns' over the authority's draft local plan, which will guide all development in the Potteries up to 2040.

The draft plan includes proposals to take 11 'broad locations' out of the Green Belt and allocate 10,499 homes to them. Two of these sites – Norton Green North and Norton Green South – lie within Cllr Walker's Baddeley, Milton and Norton ward, on either side of the existing village.

Cllr Walker said he could not support the plans for his ward. (LDRS)

Norton Green South is earmarked for 2,278 homes in the plan, while a further 819 homes are allocated to Norton Green North.

Cabinet members voted to approve the draft plan for public consultation at their meeting on Tuesday. But Cllr Walker told his colleagues that he could not support the plan in its current form.

He said: "I've been through the fine detail of the plan and I have some significant concerns, particularly with respect to Norton Green North and Norton Green South.

"I cannot see how they could possibly be viable so I'm not sure why they've come forward.

"I will be supporting the local residents and encouraging them to take part fully in this consultation. But unfortunately today I am unable to support it."

The draft local plan includes site allocations for a total of 18,528 homes across Stoke-on-Trent. While these include many brownfield sites, council leaders say that development on some Green Belt land will be necessary in order to meet the government's housebuilding targets.

Stoke-on-Trent has been told to deliver 948 homes a year over the course of the plan period, which is around twice the housebuilding rate of recent years.

Allocating a site for housing in the local plan does not necessarily mean it will be developed, but it becomes much easier to secure planning permission.

A six-week public consultation on the draft plan will run from September 8 to October 20.

Council leader Jane Ashworth acknowledged Cllr Walker's concerns and said she respected his 'integrity' on the issue.

The council leader suggested that the current document includes some 'unviable' sites. (LDRS)

She told the meeting that the authority would be open to making changes that do not 'collapse' the entire local plan, and suggested that the current document includes some 'unviable' sites.

Cllr Ashworth said: "What we're looking for is local intelligence that tells us that a particular suggestion is poor, because of X, Y or Z. Personally I find that there are a couple of areas, and I'm sure others have and the public will have, where I'm not entirely certain that it would be a good idea to develop.

"One of the ways that gets resolved is if a developer looks at a piece of land and finds that the costs don't add up – the cost of new roads and other services make it unviable. I think there are a couple of those in this document.

"We want to hear from as many people as possible to tell us why certain proposals are not good, or possibly even suggest other sites. It's an open and honest and frank consultation."

After the consultation is finished, a publication version of the local plan will be revealed in the spring. This will be subject to a further round of consultation, ahead of its submission to the government in November 2026.