Meeting documents

Inspector's Recommendation

A1.1 The Inspector recommends that the overall housing requirement for the Plan period should be increased from 6200 to 6855 (approx. 10% increase). This reflects Regional Planning Guidance 10 (RPG10) building rates as opposed to the Joint Replacement Structure Plan (JRSP) on which the Local Plan is based. The Inspector's reasons include:

A1.2 The Council argued at the Inquiry that increasing the housing requirement based on RPG10 would not allow for a review of the apportionment between the Unitary Authorities on the basis of a locational strategy. However, the Inspector has had regard to the environmental constraints within Bath & North East Somerset in recommending an increase. The District's portion of the JRSP figure established (12.3%) is maintained and is based on the JRSP locational strategy which focuses development in the larger, more accessible centres.

A1.3 The Bath & North East Somerset build rate has dropped during the Plan period from over 400 dwellings a year in the 1990s to just over 200 dwellings per year in 2005. As a result, by 2005 the overall annual average for the Plan period has fallen to 385 dwellings a year which is below that required to meet the JRSP requirement of 413 a year (see Diagram 1). To achieve a requirement of 6,855, annual build rates would need to increase to 564 between 2005 and 2011. Whilst this increase in building rates is significant it is still well below the rates required in the emerging Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). The Council previously has agreed the overall RSS housing apportionment for Bath and North East Somerset of around 15,500 dwellings by 2026.This equates with 770 per annum between 2006 and 2026.

A1.4 It is considered that increasing the building rate between 2005 and 2011 to about 560 is achievable. Whilst building rates are influenced by fluctuations in the economy and property market they are also significantly influenced by the supply of deliverable sites. By allocating deliverable sites (see Appendices 2 and 3 below) through modifications to the Local Plan it is anticipated that, allowing for lead in times on those sites, house building rates can progressively increase to ensure that an increased requirement of 6,855 could be met. It should be noted that during the mid-late 1990's, when significant sites at Peasedown St. John and Sulis Meadows in Bath were being constructed, District building rates averaged more than 560 per annum (see Diagram 1).

A1.5 Achieving the increase in building rates to 564 per annum would represent the first stage or step change of increasing build rates to the longer term higher level required by RSS. If the Local Plan requirement were to remain at 6,200 build rates between 2011 and 2026 would need to increase to about 900 per annum.

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RESPONSE 1

Policy HG.1 is modified to increase provision from 6,200 dwellings to 6,855 dwellings within the District by 2011