A Stoke-on-Trent MP has described sites earmarked in the local plan as "not fit for purpose" after meeting concerned residents.

Stoke-on-Trent North MP Jonathan Gullis met with residents to hear their concerns over the local plan and see for himself the 'strength of public feeling'.

"There is obviously a lot of strength of public feeling and I've had the people contact me directly into my inbox, I've obviously heard the calls when I've been on BBC radio Stoke, as well as engaging with local councillors like Paul Waring", he said.

Residents are particularly concerned over NC77 (Bent Farm, Newchapel) and NC13 (Land West of Bullockhouse Road, Harriseahead) which combined could add an additional 200 homes to the area, both sites are less than a kilometre apart.

The Stoke-on-Trent North MP continued:"It is important to come out, it's important to look at the sites because it's all well and good looking at a piece of paper, seeing something is very different in reality.

"Hearing residents' concerns but also their very in depth knowledge of the history of these sites, whether that be traffic challenges we face locally as well as some of these sites potentially having subsidence issues where developers have chosen not to develop in the past because of the challenges."

Local ward councillor, Paul Waring said there is little capacity on existing roads for improvements.

He commented: "The main issues seem to revolve around ecological matters and also the ability of the road network to actually cope with the levels of traffic that are envisaged if the developments go ahead.

"All the residents locally know that there are major issues with all the roads from Newchapel, obviously we've got bottlenecks in different places. Colclough Lane is a very difficult road to navigate and so without major infrastructure changes it is difficult to see how it would be practical to have these additional developments."

The MP concluded: "We know traditionally across Kidsgrove Parish the mining works that would probably need to be done to remediate, to make these sites economically viable, which comes again at a huge cost before you've even started building on the site.

"So I think ultimately, it is obviously essential that I heard those concerns. I'm going to go away and engage with the Borough Council to hear the response to that but ultimately I will be writing in objections to NC77 and NC13 because it is for me, clearly these I don't think are fit for purpose.

"My challenge will now be to try and find alternative sites to put forward to the council."

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