Coventry's green belt lost due to wrong population estimate

Coventry has wrongly lost swathes of green belt land for development because the housing need for the city was over-estimated, campaigners say.

The 2021 Census shows a population shortfall of about 40,000 compared to data the council must use from from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Up to 10% of green belt was removed for the city's local long-term housing plan which angered green campaigners.

The council said it knew ONS data is "flawed" but houses were still needed.

There are about 345,000 people living in Coventry according to the newly-released data from the 2021 Census, which is an increase of about 28,000 over past 10 years.

The council used government figures when it drafted its local housing plan 10 years ago, which has over estimated the number of people living in the city.

Campaigners say they now want all planning applications on former green belt land to be halted.

Merle Gering, chairman of Keep our Greenbelt Green, said there had been a "spectacular failure in the city to have anything like the population growthy expected".

"People should have known it. It was obvious... The repercussions are that some of the best and most beautiful land in the county and the city has been taken away from green belt and allocated for housing."

He added: "Right now we need a moratorium on any planning decision on anything that was green belt or green field for at least six months or even a year."

Councillor David Welsh, cabinet member for communities, said the authority must use government figures even if they are "flawed", but a planning review was likely at the end of the year when they hoped to discuss the data with the government.

The housing need in the local plan based on the government's numbers was 42,000 and 24,000 were being built.

"This idea that a change in the numbers is going to result in houses not being needed is a nonsense," he added.

He said "the fight isn't with Coventry, the fight was with the government" and the authority would challenge them using the planning review.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Office for National Statistics said it would "always expect differences with the mid year population estimates from the year prior to census, and that "the main purpose of the census is to 'rebase' our estimates of the size of the population".

"In the case of Coventry, for example, the census shows our Mid Year Estimates have been giving a slight overestimate of the population," he added.

"The population continues to change and we recognise the need to understand those ongoing changes in a more timely and frequent way than ever before.

"We are using a variety of data sources to do this and will publish more on our new approach in the coming months."

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]