Thousands of extra homes under Government planning reforms will delay local plan, says Northants council
A Northamptonshire council has warned that the Government's new plans to increase housebuilding in the country will cause delays in the publication of its local plan- an integral document underpinning what major development will be allowed and where.
For West Northamptonshire, the annual house-building requirement would increase from 2,124 to 2,584- an extra 460 homes a year. For the current local plan period (to 2041) this would require almost 8,000 extra homes to be built in the local authority.
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) informed members at a planning policy meeting last week (September 18) that it would be forced to delay its local plan submission in order to identify sites for the thousands of additional homes.
Richard Wood, head of planning policy at WNC said: "In order to plan for this additional requirement further time is required to undertake further evidence base work, develop proposals and undertake further consultation. The consequence of this is to push back the date for adoption.
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"We're currently working on a revised work plan to address these emerging changes to the planning system. This is currently complicated by the fact that the proposals are just proposals of Government and could change in the final version published this side of Christmas.
"In the meantime, it is clear that the existing local development scheme milestones cannot be met."
For every year extension to the plan, there will be a requirement of a further 2,584 dwellings. So, if the local plan period is extended by two years to 2043 a total of 49,000 homes will need to be built compared to the previous requirement for 36,000 homes before the Government uplift.
The current timetable for the local plan indicates a draft document should be published in January 2025 with the final plan submitted in June of that year- however officers said this was already an "ambitious" timescale.
It is not clarified how much extra time will be needed to finalise the local plan and therefore how long the extension of the plan period will be. National guidance recommends as a minimum that local plans should have a life of 15 years post-adoption.
Cllr Stephen Clarke (Cons, Hackleton and Grange Park) said: "Just saying we will increase the numbers by 13,000 dwellings won't solve the problem. We need to get this across to Government that planning is a critical factor, but not the critical factor."
Mr Wood replied: "In terms of delivery, yes that is a real issue for us and just allocating more land doesn't necessarily result in additional delivery. It's interesting that the rate of delivery that we've had over the last six or seven years is consistent with the current way of calculating our average requirement [for housing need].
"For the additional 460 dwellings per annum, it will be interesting to see whether that's achievable and issues around house builders' willingness to build in this area, funding for infrastructure and market saturation.
"Just allocating it isn't the sole answer."
WNC discussed their response to a series of questions from the Government on the planning reforms which you can view in full here. The consultation has been sent to councils and organisations across the country and closes tomorrow, on Tuesday, September 24.