The new coalition government is starting to act on giving powers back to local councils! The first important example of this that we’ve seen is a short letter that the new government minister, Eric Pickles, has sent out to councils:
27th May 2010
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Dear Chief Planner,
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ABOLITION OF REGIONAL STRATEGIES
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I am writing to you today to highlight our commitment in the coalition agreements where we very clearly set our intention to rapidly abolish Regional Strategies and return decision making powers on housing and planning to local councils. Consequently, decisions on housing supply (including the provision of travellers sites) will rest with Local Planning Authorities without the framework of regional numbers and plans.
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I will make a formal announcement on this matter soon. However I expect Local Planning Authorities and the Planning Inspectorate to have regard to this letter as a material planning consideration in any decisions they are currently taking.
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Yours
Eric Pickles
So can Rochford DC now decide for itself how many new homes it wants to build in the district? Will the council now drop the ideas, for example, of building near Watery Lane and north of London Road? We look forward to a quick response from the council.
Meanwhile Hawkwell councillor John Mason reports that South Oxfordshire District Council have already scrapped their local development framework. The Oxford Mail says:
Mr Pickles? announcement prompted South Oxfordshire District Council leader Ann Ducker to withdraw plans showing where 5,000 new homes would be built across the district.
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The plans were only announced three days ago.
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As reported on Thursday, a 4,000-home proposed development south of Grenoble Road on the outskirts of Oxford would also be scrapped because of the Government?s policy change.
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If other councils follow suit, dozens of controversial developments across the county could be axed.
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Mrs Ducker yesterday said the council would look at how many homes were needed, rather than allocate sites to fulfil targets.
And the Worcester News reports in similar vein that plans for 25,500 houses across South Worcestershire will be scrapped. As one reader there comments:
“I’m glad to see that the policy of returning housing targets to local control, which was featured in both Lib Dem and Conservative party manifestoes, has been so swiftly implemented.”
Local control means that democratically elected District Councils will decide on how many new homes to allow….
Sorry, I’ve asked this question repeatedly before – “do we want a Core Strategy or not”?
As I understand it, not having a CS may allow the developers waiting in the wings to get their large proposals through. We could be worse off.
What do we really want???????????/
By all means , let’s have a Core Strategy, but one that is based on locally decided housing figures, not an imposed figure.
But given the widespread unhappiness with the current CS, how do we get to a locally agreed position and what happens in the meantime?
Many local residents have children in late teens and early 20,s struggling to find a place to live which they can afford. The area does need small affordable housing units for this group and not large 4/5 bedroom housing. This should be shared fairly throughout the district but development also needs to include green spaces, schools, community centres etc. Personally I would find it hard to support any proposal that does not include these points.
Brian, on the back of my envelope…………
In my opinion the solution to this lies in community responsibility, leadership and initiative. Clearly this is something where myself and the Coalition Government agree upon enthusiastically because the ideas which have come forward in the Agreement are about decentralisation and the other label devolution. David Cameron spent a day in the Election talking about People Power.
At the present time the District Council has not got any definitive guidance that has a legal footing in my view but my hope is that the deployment of a Planning Policy Circular or even an Interim Statement in the Commons will provide that as soon as possible.
But our Parish Councils and/or, independently, the Parish Plan Groups can take the initiative right now and by simple door to door survey find out from residents what their family housing needs are likely to be over 5 and 10 year periods. A sort of local census (but we cannot wait till the official one in March 2011). That would represent our local needs and the Allocation of Sites DPD, including the ones rejected, could be considered as the best smaller places to meet these needs. “Simples” if they are up for it. I hope so. The various residents associations and action groups could also get involved going door to door thus providing the resource in numbers to do the local census job.
I would expect seperately RDC Planners to look at the new employment opportunities at the Southend Airport and the time line again and realistically accept that a proportion of local people will take up these new jobs and come up with a real basis of the socio economic needs of new residents coming here for the balance of the new jobs. And make some sensible analysis of where, may be a larger development, might service such needs on a basis that does NOT generate many more car journeys per se. Oh and make a start right now with Essex County Council on the review of the Local Transport Plan to make sure that the right public transport and road infastructures come in at the same time.
Just as I said some ideas.
I believe Bruce is correct that we must not lose sight of the needs of the next generation with their housing needs .It is imperative that RDC stick to their target of over 30% “affordable housing” whatever that might mean in our context as it seems to me that very few houses will be affordable round here .Mortgages will be hard to get as wages are squezzed ,it is an employers world out there ! Should not the housing association fulfill its contractural obligations over its housing completions ? If not then surely RDC Councillors have a duty to insist ? Or am I being too simplistic ?
Excuse me for being obtuse, but what sort of research and insights do you suppose Parish and other local groups can obtain, which trumps the kind of careful, evidence- and trend-based research conducted as part of formulating RSS’s?
Surely, all we are going to see here is a rash of NIMBYism and avoidance, just deepening our housing shortage?
I would be happy to see a reasonable amount of development here, if it was affordable and for local families alas historically this has not been the case and the developers do not listen to RDC. Where do we go from here?
While I think there is a strong case for taking on board the concerns of those concerned about over development and revisiting the figures. I also think that Paul makes a powerful argument for ensuring that Rochford District Council uses good resources for determining housing requirements. I am in agreement with a matthews and brucesmart on ensuring that people who grew up here can remain here if they so wish. It’s good to see this side of the argument being put forward as I feel that it has been drowned out by those who want no development at all.
I wish Rochford Distric Council all the best in getting this balance right.
Paul, you make an interesting point. One approach is to look at the Council’s Housing Strategy 2008-2011:
http://www.rochford.gov.uk/PDF/plans_and_strategies_housing_strategy.pdf
In section 4.1 it states that:
“The inability of some local people and key workers to access good quality housing
that they can afford presents a challenge to the Council. The SHMA estimates that
the level of need for affordable housing in the District represents 52% of anticipated
levels of house building from 2006-2021. It recommends an 80:20 split of affordable
housing between social rented and intermediate housing provision. A net annual need
of 131 additional affordable homes has been estimated.”
52%….
So we are looking at a a minimum of 131 new homes a year as a starting point, Though I’d prefer to see the percentage of intermediate housing provision higher than 20 percent.
The accusation of NIMBYism is pretty inevitable, and sometimes it’s right. For example, as far back as the 80s I can remember someone angrily opposing the Downhall Park Way development, telling me that it would become slums. Well THAT hasn’t happened.
But well as the blunt (and sometimes NIMBYish) wish to simply leave things alone, people can see that traffic congestion is getting worse, quality of life and social cohesion are not improving, and there also comes a tipping point when the whole character of a community changes (from small village to large village, from large village to small town etc, from rural to suburban) because the population has increased so much. And in Rayleigh we have almost run out of green fields.
Rawreth PC is probably willing to accept a higher housing figure than that accepeted by any other parish, and yet I was still called a NIMBY by the leader of the council for backing their stance last September!
During the election campaign we distributed leaflets naking it reasonably clear to everyone that the Lib Dems accepeted housing on the Rawreth Industrial Estate (providing the businesses there are looked after), supported the Rawreth PC suggestion of housing on brownfields in the parish, but opposed any devlopment on the green fields between London Road and Rawreth Lane. I believe this to be a reasonable non_Nimbyish position. I received the votes of 50% of the electorate (not merely 50% of those who voted). As a result I think I have a very strong mandate to put those views forward in the council arena, and I hope other parts of the district come up with their own local equivalents to Rawreth’s proposals.
I note the latest from Greg Clark, today, about recategorising to avoid so-called ‘garden-grab’ for housing development.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8728633.stm
Is there going to be anywhere left where houses can be built, I wonder?…
I would be interested to know what Councillors involved in giving planning permsissions have to say about this…