Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

RE: 'Interim' 5YS position...?

2025-01-27T08:20:12Z

Hi both, MHCLG confirmed at last week's PAS NPPF housing session that the new NPPF and LHN kicked in immediately for the purposes of calculating 5yr supply when released in mid-December, so you need to recalculate your 5yr supply on that basis. If you've got an adopted plan that's less than 5yrs old tho, the 5yr supply would be measured against the Plan-based figure, otherwise your previously established supply would be recalculated against the new LHN.

As Jon says, the LHN will then be updated circa late March when ONS publish the updated affordability ratio data, and then again circa May when MHCLG publish the updated dwelling stock data. One thing I asked in the Slido Q&A, but which wasn't answered during the session, was (if not measured against your adopted Plan) which of those two LHN's applies when calculating your 5yr supply position as at the end of the financial year but where you don't actually complete the analysis and publish your updated position usually until sometime in the summer or early autumn! Is it the March update that's relevant as at the end of the financial year, or does the May update apply given publishing later, or does your 5yr supply position need to be recalculated each time the LHN changes? Similar applies in terms of which LHN figure applies to the HDT calculation if it's changing at least twice a year now (or is there gonna be some kind of calculation based on one figure being relevant for the first part of the year and the other figure relevant for the rest of the year)? Hopefully some clarity will be given in an updated PPG soon!

Andrea

RE: Planning Obligations Formulas Within Local Plans Rather than SPD

2024-02-09T09:15:51Z

Hi Jonathan

We're also a unitary county-based LA and had to make modifications to include our planning obligations formulae in explanatory appendices to our Northumberland Local Plan (adopted March 2022) - see Appendices D and H1-4 re. affordable housing, open space, education, health and coastal mitigation. So would agree they can't be set out in an SPD (no point now anyway seeing as SPD's are set to become defunct). Not sure about Supplementary Plans tbh, but guess if the policy requiring the contribution is in the main Local Plan then so should the formula be.

Andrea

RE: HDT 2022 results out

2023-12-21T15:39:01Z

Just picked up on that too Ian. Had a look at their calculation figures compared to our provisional calculation for that 3yr period. Seems they've not factored in our additional delivery in the National Park or communal accommodation, just using our council's straight housing delivery numbers (as amended by the Covid adjustments). Plus they seem to have done some strange rounding of the Local Housing Need figures for those 3 years (not always rounded in the right direction)! Not a big deal overall for us, as we still come out at 277% (rather than our provisional 280% calculation), but hopefully the 2023 HDT results (which will presumably now come out fairly soon) will be more accurate, otherwise we may need to query the calculations with them again!

RE: HDT 2022 measurement results delayed?

2023-03-28T13:04:55Z

Hi Andy

There was some discussion in the recent Gov planning reforms consultation about whether they might suspend the HDT for this year and/or next year, tho no announcements have been made either way. Personally, I don't see that this year's result, which covers delivery in the 3-year period 2019-2022 should be affected, so not sure whay they might see a need to suspend that one, whereas next year's result for 2020-2023 could potentially be affected by changes in their methodology, etc arising from the consultation.

Regards

Andrea

Self-Build Register - retention of entries

2022-01-07T13:09:51Z

Wondering if any other authorities have proposed removing entries from their self-build registers after a certain period of time? Other than where people have specifically requested to be removed from the register (ie. simply no longer wish to be on it or have since found a plot within the authority area or elsewhere), and thus are no longer regarded as live entries but are obviously still recorded for the base period they registered, we've not so far removed any other entries (other than data cleansing to deal with duplicate and updated entries evidently from the same people to avoid double-counting). However, we've been wondering if a 4 year timeframe for retention might be appropriate, particularly given GDPR considerations around not retaining people on Council records indefinitely and unnecessarily? Given the requirement to have permitted sufficient potential plot opportunities within 3 years of the end of the base period (and providing the LA has met that requirement), then is there much point in retaining people on the register for more than 4 years? Would it be reasonable to therefore routinely/automatically remove older entries (from more than 4 base periods ago) and require people to then re-register if they wish to continue to be on the register, which would help to ensure those who remain on the register do still indeed need to be on it in terms of having an interest in potentially finding a plot in the area, or should everyone be simply retained for the purposes of ongoing cumulative monitoring?

The Right to Build Task Force guidance note PG9 does provide some advice on removal of registrations, including in para.59 that "Work can be undertaken to remove the details of the individuals from the Registers (in accordance with GDPR), but the duties under the legislation are not removed even where the details of an individual on the Register are removed". PG13 also includes in their suggested summary tables a field for 'Date Left Register'. So can older entries reasonably be removed as live register entries while still retaining them for statistical/numerical purposes for the base period in which they registered? Indeed, there doesn't actually seem to be a legislative requirement to maintain a cumulative register from April 2016 (start of the first base period) onwards.

Any thoughts appreciated!

RE: Neighbourhood Plan designations/ allocations and the Policies Map

2016-08-23T16:15:33Z

Not sure I agree Philip! Pretty sure the Policies Map is not a DPD in its own right! It can only be modified by any new DPD/LDD (incl. any neighbourhood plans) that's been through examination (and referendum), declared sound and formally adopted by the Council as part of the Local Plan, but you're right to highlight that any changes to the policies map proposed/resulting from a new DPD/LDD need to be made explicit (list and/or map) as part of the relevant DPD/LDD.

RE: Neighbourhood Plan designations/ allocations and the Policies Map

2016-08-22T11:11:56Z

An interesting one Daniel! We've not got any neighbourhood planning going on in South Tyneside (at least as yet), but personally I'd say the best approach would be to effectively 'grey over' the neighbourhood plan area on the main Local Plan policies map in the same way as is required for AAPs (we do have one of those emerging for our new Local Plan, and had 3 AAPs within our adopted LDF), and then have the neighbourhood plan's policies map separately. Tho, obv. strategic allocations/designations from the local plan will still be relevant to the neighbourhood plan area, so for continuity sake it may help to still show those (esp. for clarity if the neighbourhood plan opts to use different annotations) - maybe could just put a light grey wash over the neuighbourhood plan area while still having the local plan's (strategic) annotations showing through (bearing in mind that the neighbourhood plan will supersede any non-strategic designations/allocations). Will obv. need to update the main local plan policies map to show neighbourhood plan areas that come through after the local plan has been adopted, both for the printed paper version as well as for any interactive online version.

RE: Recording housing land supply

2016-05-26T08:42:07Z

Yes, that's what I was referring to Richard. The Schema they've sent out for the brownfield pilots is simply 22 column titles in an Excel spreadsheet, so nowt that special really!

RE: Recording housing land supply

2016-05-24T09:31:08Z

Similar situation here, our SHLAA was in a regionally-initiated Access database, but we've now decided to transpose it across to Excel (which we usually did anyway for much of the analysis). Furthermore, the Government's standard format for the Brownfield Register has come through as an Excel format. I see the Brownfield Register and Small Sites Register simply as sub-sets of the SHLAA, so it should be possible to set the first few columns to be consistent with what's required for the Brownfield Register and then with a column to tick whether a site is on that Register you can easily do a filter to get a summary schedule of that, which with a quick setting of the print area can be pdf'd for putting online or the relevant columns copied and pasted into a separate Excel spreadsheet to post online in that format. Similarly the Small Sites Register can easily be done by filtering according to the site area column.

RE: LDS - anyone really proud of theirs?

2015-10-16T09:33:24Z

We took our outline LDS timetable(s) to Cabinet for approval, but with delegated powers (to our service Director) for approving updates as necessary, albeit any major adjustments would have to go back to Cabinet for approval. This therefore gives us the flexibility to seek to keep the online timetables as up-to-date as possible in the public interest as we progress. We also felt this approach was in keeping with the more streamlined system enabled via the Localism Act and 2012 regs.

RE: LDS - anyone really proud of theirs?

2015-10-05T15:00:14Z

The thing is, there's no longer a requirement for the LDS to be produced as a document as such, consequent to the Localism Act's amendments to the P&CP Act and the 2012 Regs.! I've attached again a summary note of the requirements that I posted a few years ago.

We've therefore parred things right back as part of saving time and resources and (I know other LAs do too) now simply publish the necessary LDS info as part of our online Local Plan webpages (which can simply be updated and printed as and when necessary) - see www.southtyneside.gov.uk/localplan - the LDS document coverage and timetable for each DPD and our CIL are set out on the respective webpages.

RE: All NPPG affordable housing thresholds and exemptions have been quashed

2015-08-04T13:44:31Z

Well-spotted Rob, thanks, I'd written Barton Wilmore first but obv got confused with the comments author of the previous comment just above - have amended my above post.

RE: All NPPG affordable housing thresholds and exemptions have been quashed

2015-08-04T13:41:38Z

There’s now an article on the Planner website http://www.theplanner.co.uk/news/councils-win-affordable-housing-battle-against-secretary-of-state?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term= - interesting to note the key reasons for the decision:

the policy was inconsistent with the statutory scheme
an "unfair and unlawful" consultation process
a failure to take into account “obviously material” considerations, including the full implications for the supply of affordable housing land
breach of the public sector equality duty, particularly surrounding the impacts on disabled people and ethnic minorities who disproportionately rely on affordable housing
"irrationality".

Also interesting to read the reaction comments following the article, esp. the last two from Barton Wilmore and Pinsent Masons – extracts below:

"Because the approach is set out in a Ministerial Statement of Government policy, the Judge did not quash the policy; instead the effect of the judgement is to remove the tools by which the policy was brought into effect. In practice, this has meant the Government announcing the intention to remove the relevant paragraphs of guidance from the online Planning Practice Guidance. "At the heart of the judgement is a conundrum that many practitioners recognised at the time that the policy was announced – the attempt to alter statutory and policy provisions through hasty adjustment of the online Practice Guidance. The Guidance is just that – guidance. It isn’t statute and it isn’t policy."
"The High Court's decision is a pivotal statement to ministers, local authorities and the wider property community. In this case, political expediency and desire failed to adhere to the basic premise of the planning system that ministerial statements are guidance and cannot supplant local plan policies.”

RE: All NPPG affordable housing thresholds and exemptions have been quashed

2015-08-04T09:29:09Z

Our legal advisor has said that until we've had opportunity to properly review the judgement we shouldn't take any decisions that may be affected by planning obligations policy/guidance in former PPG paras.12-23. With DCLG planning an appeal, it rather feels like we're all in limbo at present as potentially the deleted 'policy' and guidance in the PPG could presumably get reinstated again sometime further down the line! I'm presuming the ministerial statement purporting to have introduced the 'policy' has effectively also been deleted from the parliamentary record as a result of the quashing too?

RE: New Guidance on s106

2015-08-04T08:47:39Z

There's a new thread on this judgement at All NPPG affordable housing thresholds and exemptions have been quashed https://khub.net/group/planningadvisoryservicepas/forum/-/message_boards/message/15824398 with link to the court judgement http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/2222.html - tho looks like DCLG are intending to appeal it!

RE: All NPPG affordable housing thresholds and exemptions have been quashed

2015-08-04T08:41:49Z

Interesting the way the conclusion of the judgement refers to "the unlawfulness of the policy promulgated by means of the Written Ministerial Statement"! No doubt this may have implications for other 'policy' amendments similarly introduced on the hoof through the back door via ministerial statements into the PPG rather than by amending/updating formal policy in the actual NPPF itself with appropriate public consultation (the December 2014 SuDS 'policy' requirement being another such example)! The clouding of the water between what's a Government policy requirement and what's simply guidance has certainly become a grey area over the past year!

RE: Persistent Under Delivery and the NPPG

2015-07-22T12:04:09Z

Hi Adam, I agree that the key is how you define the OAN requirement. Let's take for example a simple 15yr Local Plan requirement from 2011-2026 of 1,500 dwellings at 100 dwellings pa. The 1,500 is your full OAN for the plan period and that doesn't change, and the basic OAN for the next 5yrs 2015-2020 is 500. Let's then say that your LA actually only saw 300 dwellings delivered instead of 400 over the 4yrs between 2011-2015, which then means that your remaining full OAN or housing requirement for the remaining 11yrs of plan period is 1,200 (not 1,100) as you've still got to make up the 100 shortfall in delivery from the start of the plan period. It's not 1,500 + 100 as your plan's overall OAN (ie. demand-based housing requirement subject to any policy-on amendments for seeking higher growth or curtailment under NPPF para.14 exceptions, and/or adjusted as a result of DtC agreements with neighbouring LAs for more or less housing) for the plan period doesn't change. The requirement for allocation/delivery over the next 5yrs is what does change and is what the 5% or 20% buffer applies to!

So the Hambleton S78 inspector appears to be applying the Sedgefield method in saying the requirement over the next 5yrs is the basic 500 plus the 100 shortfall/backlog in delivery from previous years of the plan period, and then the 5% or 20% buffer is then applied to that 600 requirement (ie. 630 or 720) - rather than the Liverpool method seemingly advocated by the SoS and Huby inspector of not also applying the buffer to the shortfall and being able to spread the catching up of that backlog/shortfall over the full remaining plan period (which would mean the next 5yrs requirement is simply the basic 500 plus the 5% or 20% buffer = 525 or 600).

Remember that this buffer allowance is brought forward from the later years of your plan period, thus effectively reducing your residual housing requirement for the latter part (2020-26 in my example), and the full OAN for the whole plan period is unchanged (still 1,500 over 15yrs in my example).

Seems to me it's a bit of pot luck which approach is taken and which inspector you get! Both do the job of increasing the supply of land in the first 5yr period simply by applying the 5% or 20% buffer. Perhaps also partly depends on the LA's situation in terms of having a 5yr housing land supply or not, and how up-to-date their Local Plan is. The problem I see is one of realistic delivery and the prospect of catching up the backlog within 5yrs rather than over the full plan period - ie. if it's unrealistic based on past underdelivery by the housebuilding sector to be able to fully catch up that shortfall/backlog within the next 5yrs, then that shortfall's just going to increase all the more for subsequent 5yr periods, with the 5% or 20% buffer allowance enhancing the 5yr requirement all the more, and thus the Sedgefield approach makes it even less likely to achieve than the Liverpool method! Fair enough allocate and manage the release of sufficient potentially deliverable sites to meet the needs (incl. shortfall and buffer) over the next 5yrs, but if the housebuilding sector doesn't or isn't capable of delivering on that then it really doesn't seem to be right to penalise the LA for underdelivery that's out of their control, and if they're not going to build on the supply of deliverable sites then what's the point of bringing forward even more sites just for the hell of it!

PS. I also understand that the inspector for neighbouring NewcastleGateshead's joint Core Strategy (recently adopted) recommended removing their phased release policy for their now former Green Belt sites (I think because they didn't have a 5yr supply of deliverable sites) which has effectively meant a free-for-all for developers over the whole plan period in an attempt to increase delivery prospects over the shorter-term rather than the LAs being able to manage the release of sites in a more sustainable way while prioritising development of urban brownfield sites. Kinda defeats the object of proper sustainable planning!

RE: Open Space Audits

2015-06-17T14:47:41Z

What's your e-mail then Emma and I'll send it across?

RE: Open Space Audits

2015-06-17T11:06:34Z

Hi Emma

We're doing a conjoined playing pitches and open spaces study at present, commissioned using the same consultants. I believe that PPG17 Companion Guide is one of those that hasn't been revoked or superseded as it were by the NPPF and new PPG, and thus remains extant. We referred to it in our project brief as a relevant reference point for our study approach to guide the methodology.

RE: Persistent Under Delivery and the NPPG

2015-06-10T10:39:13Z

Jonathan P, you appear to have turned it around from what it says in John's quote. The recommendation/decision is clearly that you only add on any backlog/shortfall of provision/delivery (from within your current plan period) at the end, not before your add the buffer.

So for your plan period (say 2006-2026), you take your adopted development plan's allocation requirement and calculate from within that the requirement for delivery in the next 5yrs (2015-2020), bring forward a 5% or 20% buffer to that 5yr requirement from what's already required in your overall plan period (ie. to ensure a supply equivalent to 6yrs worth within the next 5yrs based on a 20% buffer, thus offering the greater market choice) - this isn't additional to your overall plan period requirement, just a short-term supply/allocation requirement brought forward from later in the plan period (ie. with a corresponding reduction in your post-2020 supply requirement), otherwise that'd be double-counting -, and only then add on any shortfall/backlog into that 5yr supply requirement of what residual wasn't delivered against your plan's requirement during 2006-15. But you don't need to add in any under-provision from before your current plan period (ie. from pre-2006) as that's already factored into your plan period requirement 2006 onwards, and would also result in double-counting.

Similarly, in the absence of an adopted plan requirement or if wishing to monitor against an emerging new draft plan requirement, you need to work out your OAN (eg. taking the 2011 census position as the baseline for determining future needs and applying ONS/DCLG and other alternative local projections, eg. from your SHMA), adjust it as necessary (eg. to reflect exception allowances in NPPF para.14) to determine your agreed overall (realistic/achievable/deliverable) plan period requirement, say 2011-31. Then, having worked out your next 5yrs requirement from within that and brought forward a 5% or 20% uplift, when considering any backlog/shortfall you only need to add on the shortfall 2011-15 and can disregard any under-delivery/under-provision pre-2011 against your old plan period as that's built in to your projected OAN projection-based requirement from 2011 onwards, otherwise that would result in double-counting.

Supply doesn't affect of change your plan requirement, you've just gotta find the sites through your SHLAA to make up that supply and assess that potential supply against your requirement for the next 5yrs and next 15yrs. Unless of course your requirement is adjusted downwards due to exception supply constraints arising from NPPF para.14 (or perhaps a strategic sub-regional housing market area decision), in which case your neighbouring LAs will need to be negotiated with to pick up any residual need between your OAN-based requirement and your constrained requirement, and then add that into their overall increased plan requirement!

Hope that makes some logical sense and hasn't confused things further!