Five Year Housing Land Supply and National Planning Policy Framework
Many people, including many parish councillors, have yet to be advised by Herefordshire Council that at present the county has no five-year housing land supply. You might wonder what relevance this has to the man (or woman) in the street. Sadly, this affects every single person living in Herefordshire. This is because the new planning legislation introduced in 2012 by the Conservative Government, called the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), explicitly states that “where a planning authority cannot demonstrate a 5 year supply of deliverable housing land, with an additional 5% buffer, the relevant policies for the supply of housing should not be regarded as up to date” (para 49, NPPF). This means that whilst Herefordshire Council have no new forward plans or adopted Core Strategy to replace the previous Unitary Development Plan (UDP), Herefordshire has no planning policies.
This means developers can put forward planning applications for housing on any site in the county, regardless of any previous local planning policies and it is already happening. Developers are very aware of what is happening in Herefordshire, and they are not stupid and can be expected to make maximum use of this lapse in policy. Planning applications for sites such as the historic parkland called Home Farm, Belmont; a number of applications around Holmer (north of the Roman Road) and Breinton, all outside the defined settlement boundary of Hereford, have already been submitted. Some have been refused at planning committee, but without a 5 year housing land supply, it means that each application refused by the Council, is at risk of appeal, and much could depend on how the Courts will determine “sustainability”. Courts determining housing allocation sites in Herefordshire could be a huge cost to the local tax payer, this, despite the fact that over £4million of local taxpayers money has already been spent on forward plans, called the Local Development Framework. Sadly, the plans that have been produced so far over the last four years, have repeatedly been condemned as failing in so many respects, not just by local residents, but by national organisations such as the Planning Inspectorate and Natural England, to name just two government bodies.
Herefordshire Council could just be unlucky or incompetent, not being able to develop a robust forward plan but some feel that it might actually be something more sinister. If you go behind the calculation of the 5 year housing land supply calculations it seems that sites, previously in the UDP, have either “accidentally” been omitted (e.g. Lioncourt Homes application, off Attwood Lane); whilst other sites, such as the 800 home Urban Village, part of the original ESG plan, cannot now be delivered until after 5 years! If these sites were included in the Council’s calculation of supply, it would have the necessary 5 year supply, and part of the 5% buffer needed to continue to carry forward its policies. The fact that the lead officer for the Forward Plan went off on long term sick in the summer of 2012, when the public raised their concerns over the Council’s failure to deliver a 5 year land supply, have further fuelled speculation that this situation has actually been engineered.
Until Herefordshire Council can deliver a robust, viable and deliverable strategy for housing in the County, every planning application will now be determined by the NPPF and not local planning policies. The NPPF states that any new development should be “sustainable” and Brownfield sites developed ahead of Greenfield sites. This is the only protection currently available to prevent development on out of settlement, Greenfield sites. As “sustainable development” has yet to be determined in law, this could prove expensive for local taxpayers, should developers choose to challenge planning refusals through the Courts.
In 2013, are the Forward Planning department of the Council yet another department, to add to those already identified in 2012, as failing? I do not know, but I anticipate I will be contributing to the cost of unwanted development/legal challenges; as well as continuing to pay the salaries of officers unable to deliver a robust 5 year housing land supply!
