Braintree District Council takes on the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government over calculation of 5 year housing land supply.
In giving his decision in a recent called-in planning application the SoS amended BDC's 5 year housing land supply (5YHLS) by disqualifying 10 sites and removing their contribution from the council's calculation. This had the effect of dropping its supply to 4.15 years from 5.45.
The timing of this action could not have come at a worse time for BDC. Having just gone to public consultation with its revised local plan evidence base this is the last thing it needed.
A 5 year supply is of course a prerequisite with regard to the council's submission of its Section 1 local plan as the plan cannot be found sound with out it.
BDC have accordingly ignored the SoS's decision and have unilaterally reinstated 7 of the 10 sites and is now claiming a 5 year supply in its case reports.
It will be interesting to see what the local plan examiner makes of this development.
No doubt unsuccessful planning applicants will consider they have a ready made challenge at appeal should BDC seek to play the 5YHLS card when refusing applications.
The relevant text for BDC's latest case reports follows :
A material consideration in this case, is the Council’s current housing land supply position. In July 2018 the Government published the new National Planning Policy Framework 2018 (NPPF2) which was subsequently revised in February 2019 (NPPF3). These revisions to national policy changed the basis of how the 5 year housing land supply is calculated. The Council is bound to take into account this revised version of national policy by s.70(2)(C) Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
For decision making purposes, as Braintree District Council does not have an up to date Local Plan, the Council is currently required to calculate supply using the Government’s Standard Methodology, until such time as the new Local Plan is adopted.
The Council has recently received decisions from the Secretary of State in relation to the Brook Green appeal and the ‘Call In’ applications in Hatfield Peverel (Land South of Stonepath Drive and Gleneagles Way) in which the Secretary of State found that the supply position was 4.15 years supply. Having considered the evidence, the Secretary of State excluded 10 sites from the deliverable 5 year supply believing there was not clear evidence of deliverability as required by PPG. No justification or reasoning was provided in the decisions, but in excluding just the 10 sites from the supply, the Secretary of State has by default accepted the Council’s evidence in respect all other sites.
The Council has reviewed the position in respect of the 10 sites which the Secretary of State did not include. The Secretary of State has not explained why these sites were considered to not meet the clear evidence test; the Council has requested the principles of this explanation, which is needed for interpreting evidence for current and future supply assessments of sites; but has been advised by the Case Work Unit that the information will not be provided.
Having reviewed the evidence, the Council has concluded that the 2018-2023 5 year supply position should be amended by the deletion of 3 sites on which there is not yet sufficient clear evidence of deliverability (Land rear of Halstead Road, Earls Colne; Land south of Maltings Lane, Witham; and Former Bowls Club site at Ivy Chimneys, Hatfield Road, Witham). The Council considers that the remaining 7 sites (Sudbury Road, Halstead; Inworth Road, Feering; Panfield Lane, Braintree; Monks Farm, Station Road, Kelvedon; Conrad Road, Witham; Ashen Road, Ridgewell; The Limes Gosfield), meet the clear evidence requirement and as such should be included within the supply: all of these 7 sites are the subject of detailed planning applications from developers with confirmation from the developers that they will deliver completions before 2023; one of the sites is an adopted allocation with a hybrid application the subject of a Resolution to Grant and one of the sites is even actively under construction; confirming the reasonableness of the Council’s assessment.
Consequently, it is considered that the revised 5 year supply position for Braintree District for the period 2018-2023 is 5.15 years supply.
Although the Council considers that the supply indicated above represents a robust assessment of the Council’s Housing Land Supply position, the Council’s latest 5 year supply figure of 5.15 years, as at 6th August 2019 must be considered in the context of the emerging Publication Draft Local Plan. The Publication Draft Local Plan which currently sits with the Inspector must be able to demonstrate a 5 Year Housing Land Supply in order for it to be found sound and adopted. Unlike the current methodology for calculating 5 year supply which takes account of housing undersupply in the standard methodology formula, the methodology for calculating 5 year supply under a new Local Plan must add on the backlog from previous years. This will result in a higher 5 year supply requirement.
Whilst the presumption in paragraph 11 of the NPPF is not engaged (due to the presence of a 5 Year Housing Land Supply), given the Local Plan context described above, it is considered that only ‘more than moderate but less than significant weight’ can be attached to the policies of the Development Plan which restrict the supply of housing (specifically Policy RLP2 of the Adopted Local Plan and Policy CS5 of the Adopted Core Strategy).
This will need to be considered as part of the overall planning balance, along with any benefits and harms identified within the detailed site assessment considered below.