Mixed messages - planning for housing - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Grŵp agored
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Wedi dechrau - Gorffenaf 2012
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Gweithgaredd diwethaf - May
Mixed messages - planning for housing
First of all I'd like to say that the recent PAS guidance 'Successful plan-making - Advice for practitioners' is I think generally a good read and has a lot that is useful in it. Similarly the PAS guidance 'Ten key principles for owning your housing number finding your objectively assessed needs' is also good stuff. However there are, I think, some inconsistency between the two. In Successful plan-making under 'The evidence base and development needs' the advice on housing trajectories seems at odds with advice in Ten key principles on Ensuring a deliverable supply of sites. This part of Successful plan-making says: "Some authorities are seeking to “backload” their housing trajectories citing the poor housing market as a reason for doing so. However the point about the trajectory is that it should relate to housing need. There is little point in planning to provide additional housing in the latter part of the plan period if the need is for housing in the early plan period. Thus to be effective housing policies need to be closely related to where and when the housing need is anticipated." If the authority is following the advice from Ten key principles it will be objective about deliverability so will not be 'SEEKING to "backload" their housing trajectories' and its trajectory will only show when they and the development industry think the houses will be built. If there are too few houses being built housing need will go up but house builders won't build more because of high need unless that translates into sales. But then Successful plan-making tells us 'However the point about the trajectory is that it should relate to housing need.' I would however suggest that it is housing need that is related to the trajectory. I agree with the next sentence that 'There is little point in planning to provide additional housing in the latter part of the plan period if the need is for housing in the early plan period.' But no authority can control supply and no authority would be able to or want to constrain supply to the extent that it would mean they don't have a 5 year land supply. The last part of this paragraph from Successful plan-making says that 'Thus to be effective housing policies need to be closely related to where and when the housing need is anticipated.' This is true but there are probably better areas to focus on than housing policies to tackle delivery, such as clearly understanding what infrastructure is needed and when and working with providers of that infrastructure to get it in place as soon as possible. It may be that I am reading too much into this but it seems to me that it is not helpful if guidance on how to do successful local plans doesn't convey confidence that the people who wrote it really understand the subject - and in this particular area I think that is the case.
Hi James, Thanks for these comments. We will look into how we can update and improve the document accordingly. I do just want to clarify a couple of points though. It's important to note that the 'successful plan making' document refers to our experiences in supporting local authorities in their plan making. So it does actually reflect practice we have seen. Despite your assertion that authorities are not 'seeking' to backload their trajectories, we are certainly aware of this happening in practice. Completely agree with you that it shouldn't be happening, though. The point you make about not being able to control supply is something else I want to touch on. It's the delivery of housing that local authorities can't control. The supply (of sites) is absolutely within your gift and is a crucial part of plan making. The important question here is 'are you as an authority ensuring there is a '5-year supply'? If you are not identifying enough deliverable land for the next 5 years, you are vulnerable. Many authorities are looking to phase development, so that they can encourage regeneration by developing brownfield sites first, before releasing greenfield or even green belt. This is just one of the ways authorities are looking to control supply. You've certainly illustrated that it's important for us to get the terminology right and I will look at how we can maybe make this clearer. The sentence about 'meeting need now' also relates to the logic behind using the Sedgefield method to calculate any backlog, as opposed to the Liverpool method. At examinations so far, it is clear the Sedgefield method is preferred. Certainly happy to have a look at the section on the housing trajectory and reference all the other considerations you refer to. We do cover these in detail elsewhere in the document of course (in the 'deliverability' section, for example), but I am sure we can look at making things clearer in this section. Thanks again for your comments Adam
Thanks Andrea, We obviously appreciate your comments as well. The issue of employment and meeting the needs of the existing population is an interesting one. We are being cautious to suggest that all new employment offers are able to 'hoover up' existing local unemployment, given the potential mismatch between local skills and what the new employment opportunity requires. As with everything, there needs to be a balance, and above all, evidence to support any assumptions made! As with James' comments I will look at how we can clarify some of the messages in the light of your helpful contributions. Thanks Adam