Issue - meetings

The government recently published for consultation the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other changes to the planning system. The Council needs to respond to this consultation and the report sets out the recommended key elements of the response. The revised NPPF will also have significant implications for the Council’s Local Plan and the report outlines some of the main implications and the recommended next steps in respect of Local Plan preparation.

Cllr Matt McCabe, Cabinet Member for Built Environment, Housing and Sustainable Development, introduced the report, moved the officer recommendation and made the following points:

·  The Labour government has launched a consultation on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework. In particular, the way that our house building targets are calculated.

·  It is suggested that we have a 0.8% annual increase of our existing housing, plus the calculated Affordability Uplift.

·  The result of this is a 9% drop in Bristol’s housing target, a 20% increase for North Somerset, a 30% increase for South Gloucestershire but a 104% increase for B&NES.

·  The problem is that we cannot expand the city of Bath.  It has a World Heritage listing and because we have a mapped “Green Setting” for the city, we can’t expand into it without harming the listing.

·  Bath can deliver around 5000 houses over the next 20 years (mainly from brownfield sites) but that does not change because the government has doubled our housing target.  It is not acceptable for the government to demand that North East Somerset takes Bath’s housing.

·  Even if we were to bring 11 thousand homes to B&NES we still would not have addressed the affordability crisis in Bath.

·  We need to tackle land banking, land pricing, viability studies concluding that affordable housing is impossible.  We need to enforce policy and to compulsory purchase land or buildings for affordable housing.

·  It is important to engage with the government now.  The proposal is for the Cabinet Member and senior officers to undertake the consultation response, but also to reset our new local plan. Whatever the result of the consultation, officers need to start working on this new house building target. We do need to go back out to our residents clearly setting out what this doubling of our numbers might look like. Despite the changed goal posts, all the evidence we have gathered is still important evidence in planning terms.

·  The way forward would be a resetting of the Local Plan, and a full and frank discussion with government about how we deal with a double World Heritage city and its housing needs.

Cllr Manda Rigby seconded the motion and made the following points:

·  We believe in house building and the need for more houses.  However, these need to be the right kinds of houses in the right places.

·  We have a shortage of social and truly affordable housing. We have many larger properties, few smaller bungalows, and have an aging population whose children have flown the nest and would want to move if there was somewhere to move to. Our rental market is extremely competitive and rents are very high. Houses for sale show that there seems to be a minimum entry point exceeding eight times average earnings.

·  Against that we have developers who say, rightly, that they pay a lot to purchase land, particularly in Bath, and in order to maximise their profits they cater for the executive market which is not what  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46