'New town' concept for Flintshire

Alex Aldridge has called for a 'summit' over future housing

A plan to build a new town to meet Flintshire's housing needs has been suggested by a former council leader.

Cllr Alex Aldridge said existing towns and estates were no longer able to handle "bolting on" of more homes.

He was also worried that more house building in existing communities could put pressures on infrastructure and lead to increased flood risk.

Calling for the start of a debate, Mr Aldridge said: "I haven't got an exact area in mind, mine is a concept."

Mr Aldridge said he was particularly concerned about the A548 corridor.

He believes a new town should be built on eco-friendly principles on vacant land, south of the A55, which was not on a flood plain.

I don't want to be held responsible for helping to recreate a situation where we have disastrous floods like in Gloucestershire Councillor Alex Aldridge

He added: "A new town would have to be big enough to accommodate between 4,000-5,000 new homes, of various different types.

"We can't keep bolting on to existing towns, we just can't handle it anymore. We can't keep adding on and joining towns up - there will be no differences eventually.

"Somebody's got to start the debate, and I'm calling for a summit involving anyone with a stake or interest in Flintshire, to begin with a blank canvas and look at this seriously."

Mr Aldridge, who was also a former leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, said he was worried that increasing the size of existing towns could cripple the drainage infrastructure of communities.

He added: "I don't want to be held responsible for helping to recreate a situation where we have disastrous floods like in Gloucestershire and Tewkesbury.

"We had floods in 2001 in Flintshire and they said then it was the kind of thing that could happen once in 200 years. It's obviously not, and we need to think seriously about this now."

The full council will discuss its housing strategy on Tuesday.

Flintshire has around 4,000 people on its housing waiting list and the council executive last week agreed to lobby the UK government for the right to build new council homes.

According to the Home Builders' Federation, just over 9,000 new homes were built in Wales last year.

Recently, Shelter Cymru said across Wales, 3,500 affordable homes needed to be built every year until 2011 to clear what it called "a backlog of need."

The assembly government said £450m would be spent in the next four years on affordable homes.