Last week one of the District Council committees approved the Council’s Urban Capacity Study. It’s a very important document , although it doesn’t seem to be on the District Council website yet. It has particular significance for Rawreth, because it suggests that there is a high probability that Rawreth Industrial Estate might be re-used for housing.
Basically, the document tackles this question – the District Council has to allow another 3700 or so new homes, how many of these can be built inside existing urban areas and industrial sites? These are the answers that the council has come up with:
Sites with existing planning permissions (and may or may not have been built yet): 856
This is the number for each ward:
TOTAL 856
Building Homes on commercial sites in residential areas
The document looked at various commercial sites that were really in residential areas and suggested that a number of sites had a “high probability” of being changed to housing:
TOTAL 95
Intensification of existing sites (“knock down one, build four”)
The report suggested that about 404 extra homes might be built up to 2021 by “intensifying” existing residential plots. However the reaport recommended that councillors shouldn’t allow for this in the figures because it might possibly sway a planning inspector to pass something he otherise wouldn’t. So this figure wasn’t included.
TOTAL 0
Subdividing existing homes (“turn your house into a couple of flats”)
The document suggested a figure of 15 extra homes from converting existing houses into flats – and this was to be included in the calculations.
TOTAL 15
Living above the shop
The document suggested that having homes built above shops would have a minimal impact – maybe 7 extra homes
TOTAL 7
Building houses on bigger industrial and commercial sites.
The document looked at various big commercial sites and suggested that a number of sites had a “high probability” of being changed to housing, This doesn’t mean that these sites would automatically get planning permission. It does mean though that we can say to the government that we can cut down the number of greenfield sites because these industrial sites – or maybe other ones instead – are highly likely to go for housing. (however if an industrial state is lost the council may have to allocate one elsewhere on a greenfield)
The sites are:
TOTAL 292
So there is a grand total of 1301 homes projected to be built in urban areas. The consequence of this is that only about 2400 may need to be built on greenfield sites.