Controversial plans by Birmingham City Council to build 6,000 new homes and a business park on greenbelt land in Sutton Coldfield have been backed by the planning inspector.
The decision means green fields at Langley in Sutton Coldfield will now be built on, part of plans to build 51,000 new homes in the Birmingham Development Plan by 2031. There will also be more employment, retail and office space.
According to the city council, these plans cannot be achieved by redeveloping brownfield alone, as there is only 77 hectares of such land available, while 208 hectares is needed for the plan.
The council has devised its plan to develop the local economy and also deal with the expected increase of 150,000 in the city's population by 2031.
Such an increase will take Birmingham's population past the 1.2 million mark, an all-time high, although the previous peak in the 1960s occurred a decade before the reorganisation of local government saw the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield absorbed into the city.
