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The Welsh Government is destroying communities by allowing developments to go ahead after local councils have turned them down, according to council chiefs.

Council chiefs say plans they knock-back are being granted on appeal by the Welsh Government through a policy called Tan 1.

While the policy was recently temporarily suspended by Cardiff for consultation with Welsh local authorities, Flintshire’s full council has supported a motion to scrap it completely.

The policy says local authorities in Wales have to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply or “considerable weight” should be given to planning applications if they can’t, even if they are on green areas.

Cllr Cindy Hinds, who brought the Flintshire council motion, said the process for calculating land supply was flawed.

(Image: Google maps)

She also pointed to a backlog of applications for more than 1,000 homes in various parts of Flintshire waiting to be determined, which are not being taken into account.

Cllr Hinds represents Penyffordd which in 13 years has seen the village nearly triple from 1,500 to about 4,000 with speculative (rejected bids allowed by the Welsh Government) planning applications in recent years, with Redrow recently getting a development for 186 homes through on appeal.

“Developers have been land banking brown field sites and making speculative planning applications which are getting through because of Tan 1,” she said.

“Communities are being destroyed by speculative planning applications and in Penyffordd the character of the village has totally changed.

“We have gone down from 19 shops to four but the number of houses have way more than doubled.

“It is putting pressure on roads, schools, doctors, highways and we are losing green fields.

“We don’t want the policy temporarily suspended we want to see it scrapped.”

Other local authorities across Wales have also struggled with speculative planning applications on green fields including Wrexham where outline plans for 365 homes on fields were granted on appeal in Llay.

A Welsh Government spokesman said the consultation on Tan 1 closed on June 21.

He said: “We will consider the evidence submitted and make an announcement in due course.”

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