RSS abolition and 5 year supply - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi James, I think, legally, the RSS is still extant until it is abolished by separate order, rather than being abolished owing to the enactment of the Localism Bill. However, I'd suggest you seek your own legal counsel on that. My understanding is that there is now likely to be a transition period for authorities to move into the 'new' system. What the transitional arrangements are is still unknown. I think the important thing is that you have done the work to show what your housing figures are once the RSS is abolished in your region. I appreciate the crux of your question is whether you can now use your own figures when determining the 5 year supply, or if you're still bound by the RSS figure. That's the bit I can't answer! I wonder, what line are others taking locally? Anyone been to/going to an examination recently using a locally derived figure?

This issue has just been debated at the Wigan Core Strategy Examination. Our position is a locally derived figure (based upon demographic/housing data) which we argue is in general conformity with RSS. We are arguing as it is locally derived we don't need to account for under provision against RSS targets from its 2003 base date. We await the Inspectors view.

You may wish to note the appeal decision in the link below, which discusses the relevance of RSS projections and provides one inspector's opinion on the degree to which a LPA can use its own figures. http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/ViewCase.asp?caseid=2153247&coid=6400 Any observations?

I think the key point of the decision is the clear pointing to the need to use the most up-to-date available evidence. It appears that neither the council nor the appellant took this into account. This may, in answer to the original question, seem to suggest that you can deviate from the adopted RSS figure. However, this can presumably only be the case when the most up to date evidence provides the 'reason' for adjusting that figure. I very much hope that this principle should not come as 'news' to anyone.Namely, in monitoring the effectiveness of your policies in future, you will presumably use the most up to date evidence to assist you. I am NOT suggesting a constant updating of evidence. However, household projections are an accepted source, and so any updated publication of these should at least be referred to in your monitoring activities. Census data is also 'coming soon'.....

Adam One of my concerns about all the Core Strategies going through is their long timeframes (some are to the late 20's), which does mean that evidence upon which the application of policies depends should be regularly updated, maybe biennially if not annually. As backdata builds up it will be progressively easier to do annual and even biannual updates on forecasts. Sadly, I foresee inevitable resourcing difficulties and expedient choices about what's important, resulting in reviews and evdience updates on longer timescales. This would fit in with the current picture, where the key point of the LDF system (regular reviewing of multiple documents) is already being undermined by many LPAs dropping originally intended DPDs, and even settling for a single DPD and calling it their Local Plan.

Thanks Andrew, I may be about to say something controversial here, but I'm much more optimistic than that! Core Strategies have to have at least a 15 year span, so to see them coming forward planning to the late 20s is no surprise. It's also no surprise to local authorities that they will have to be very keen on monitoring in order to ensure the plan is still on course to deliver what they (and the community) want it to. The change from a a suite of documents (which is still a choice available to everyone) to a single DPD called the local plan is also less of a concern for me. Why? Because the 'hierarchy' of the documents has gone. This means you can essentially review any and all policies through monitoring and updating evidence, and produce a single policy DPD (if you saw fit) to replace the offending policies with new ones. Having everything in one document does not automatically transfer into having to review the whole document should monitoring suggest a change is required. Finally, more and more authorities are understanding the importance of scenario testing or 'having a plan b'. This means that even where evidence suggests a shift in policy may be required, work has already been done to understand the impact on the ground. Of course I'm sure I'm over-simplifying, under-selling and down right missing the point. I just believe with less guidance around, and less legislation, the system will be as easy or as difficult to navigate as one chooses to make it.

Adam A very useful overview, which perhaps should be sent to every planning officer in the country! - especially the managers tasked with picking up the baton on this. Generally, I think your last sentence sums up the underlying risk to the successful use of the LDF system, if not the operation of the planning system per se - I'm not so confident that sheer bureacratic inertia won't have an undue influence, as it does now. I am actually a 'glass is half full' person by nature, but my planning pessimism is informed by day to day dealings with LPAs and a burgeoning aquaintance with content of DPDs and ever more SPDs. I would love to see individual policies being critically reviewed as to their purpose and effectiveness, but that needs a sea change in outlook. The default position at present is that applications failing to meet one or other policy requirements are the fault of the application and not the policy.

It's the old problem of certainty v flexibility. Bringing forward a land supply in an orderly fashion to create genuinely sustainable communities will require that at some point we can arrive at a figure and stick to it for at least long enough to give developers the certainty to assemble sites and bring them forward to appropriate standards. Plans to cover 15 to 20 years and give certainty to both commnities and developers will need reviewing if evidence indicates they have become unfit for purpose, but setting out figures for that period with the routine caveat that they will be subject to review every couple of years or so undermines the whole principle of long term strategic planning

I think this sounds a lot like 'plan, monitor and manage' to me, which is most certainly nothing new. Using monitoring to review the effectiveness of your plan need not be something that leads to uncertainty. I am not sure you will always be reviewing your figures every two years, rather you will be just checking the strategy is still delivering as you had planned. Your SHLAA will be picking up suitable sites, your other policies will be showing whether the balance between economic, social and environmental is getting unhealthily skewed, and your housing completion figures will help you understand if there is an unusually high or low level of delivery against what you had expected. I say again, I very much doubt that in most cases monitoring will require you to actually reconsider your figures, or indeed your strategy per se. The direction of travel will remain, but you are showing you can respond to the various external triggers by building in a flexibility to the management of land and assets and the continued improvement of place.

This needs to be treated systematically. The starting point is that the 5 year supply is calculated on the basis of the development plan (at least until the final NPPF comes out and them is unlikely to change dramatically) but of course other materials considerations apply. If with revocation of the RSS (when it is revoked the royal assent of the localism bill is given very little weight at the money) the development plan is out of date the issue will rest on the most up to date evidence - likely to be 2008 based household projections. The Nuneaton appeal is interesting but you cant directly read off from the projections to a supply figure - you also need to take into account the proportion of new stock that stands empty (frictional vacancies), and demolitions. I set out what I think is the correct formula on my blog (building on the work of Alan Holmans, Christine Whitehead etc.). In some appeals developers have completed their own chelmer type model. At one appeal at Strateford Upon Avon this was accepted by the inspector as the RSS review was never completed and the local plan and old rss were very out of date. We await to see what the final NPPF will say, if anything, about how to calculate local housing need. However I have now read enough of these studies to recognise the outright manipulation and massaging to bring housing numbers down - especially through unenforceable assumptions such as all inward migration to a district will cease - to make a fair guess at the short shrift inspectors will give them, as they they have done in a number of landmark LDP inquires in Wales where inspectors have rejected inmigration assumptions less than the 2008 based household projections. The risk of course is that without strategic planning 'projections' will be treated as 'forecasts', so those areas that high levels of housebuilding in the past will have high levels in the future, because of growth of the existing population, whether this is a good place for further growth or not.