Weight given to parish council requests for housing allocations - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Having spent time gathering evidence, we are now drafting the development strategy for our local plan. Our approach means that we don’t have to look to our smallest villages to contribute to achieving OAN (these are settlements with few facilities and fall at the bottom of our hierarchy). However, we have become aware that some of those communities may want to have small scale growth (say 5-10 market dwellings) to support local shops, pubs schools etc. Other villages of similar size and who are in the same group in the hierarchy are opposed to allocations in their area. Some have started to prepare neighbourhood plans and intend to allocate sites themselves. Others want the growth but don’t want to prepare plans (perhaps because of the commitment, cost etc) and would prefer the Borough Council to allocate sites in the local plan.

The question.

In the light of the fact that the Council does not need to allocate sites in small villages to meet OAN, would it be appropriate for the Council to make allocations in only those villages that want allocations and are not preparing their own NPs? Would this be found to be a flawed development strategy because other settlements in the same group in the settlement hierarchy (that may be shown to be equally or more sustainable) did not have allocations? I would anticipate that those promoting sites in similar villages with no allocations will object.

Just for clarity, this isn’t about the overall plan number because the amount of development that would arise from these sites is small when compared to the plan requirement overall. It is about the fact that the only evidence underpinning the need for allocation of sites in these villages could be the requests made by the local Parish Councils for the growth. What weight can be given to local Parish Council requests for housing allocations on this scale?