Duty to cooperate and housing market areas

Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - Yesterday

Former Member, modified 9 Years ago.

Duty to cooperate and housing market areas

Hi folks,

Can anyone help give me some clarity on the scope of DtC and HMAs? Paragraph 47 of the NPPF says the local plan must meet the full, objectively assessed needs for market and affordable housing in the housing market area. However, paragraph 159 says that a SHMA should assess the full housing needs, working with neighbouring authorities where housing market areas cross administrative boundaries. So I'm left wondering if councils are supposed to be meeting the needs of only their neighbours in their HMA, or if they also have to meet the needs of other councils in other HMAs if they are neighbours.

The PPG doesn't seem to shed much light on it, only saying at 3-008-20140306 that housing and economic land availability assessments should be undertaken and reviewed with other LPAs in the relevant housing market area. This seems to lean more towards not having to work with other councils outside the HMA.

Any thoughts?

Steve Tapscott

Daniel Hudson, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Duty to cooperate and housing market areas

Advocate Posts: 121 Join Date: 25/04/12 Recent Posts

Although logic and Government policy have very little in common these days, logic would suggest that provision outside a housing market area is unlikely to be able to meet needs within that area and, even if it did, would give rise to unsustainable travel patterns.

Of course HMA boundaries are often blurry at the edges in practise. I think that to satisfy an Inspector that you have addressed DTC robustly, you will have to engage with neighbours in different HMAs on need issues. Perhaps the difference is that

for intra HMA co-operation, the focus is on a strategic overview of need and the distribution of development to meet that need on a sub-regional basis,
for extra HMA co-operation, the focus is on 'edge effects' and relationships betwen needs and opportunities in the areas close to the boundary;