Tag: housing

Strategic Housing Land Use Availability Assessment (SHLAA) sites

These are personal notes, written in November 2018, by Roger Kayes, head of the Perranzabuloe NDP Housing Group on the question.

Following the flurry of interest in the Perranporth map (screen shot of the CC Perranporth SHLAA map below) of  Strategic Housing Land Use Availability Assessment (SHLAA) sites referred to at the Perranporth meeting of the NDP group on the 21st of November 2018, it might be helpful to give any concerned residents further information to clarify what a SHLAA site is, and is not.  There are no SHLAA sites, to my knowledge, in other areas of Perranzabuloe that have not already gone on to receive planning permission.

Cornwall Council’s information on this is very helpful:

“The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires all Local Authorities to carry out Strategic Housing Land Use Availability Assessment as part of the evidence base for the Local Plan.

Cornwall Council has prepared and regularly updates SHLAA to support the Cornwall Local Plan. The SHLAA is a technical document that identifies sites across Cornwall which shows initial potential for providing 10 or more new homes. The SHLAA automatically excludes sites which are:

  1. Not connected to a settlement within the Settlement Hierarchy.
  2. Within a designated Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area and/or Site of Special Scientific Interest.
  3. Within Flood Zone 3b.

Sites are largely included in the SHLAA on the basis of a broad-brush desktop assessment which means that their inclusion in the SHLAA does not imply that they would necessarily be granted planning permission or are suitable for allocation for residential use. Nevertheless, with the vast majority of the sites having been put forward by the landowners, it is a good guide to what sites are available. The SHLAA also provides an indication of how many homes could be delivered and when, based on input from the landowners, density calculations and typical build-out rates.”

From:  Cornwall Council Neighbourhood Planning Guidance Note: Housing Land Availability Assessment

Key points are stated very clearly in another document available online (cornwall-shlaa-report-january-2016 – the most recent version as far as I know):

“Box 1: Status of the Cornwall SHLAA Report and Identified Sites

The Cornwall SHLAA is not a planning decision making document. It makes broad assumptions in terms of site suitability in order to bring forward a wide range of sites for consideration of housing potential. Sites that are identified in the Cornwall SHLAA would be required to be further tested by the planning application or allocation processes including consideration of sustainability and planning criteria, development plan policies and consultation before they could be deemed suitable in planning terms.

In summary:

  • The SHLAA is not development plan policy;
  • The SHLAA does not indicate that sites will be granted planning permission;
  • The SHLAA does not preclude sites from being developed for other suitable uses; and
  • The SHLAA is an important evidence base technical document but is not a planning decision making document.

The SHLAA does not preclude other sites which have not been submitted or assessed during this process from coming forward for housing.”

The web page on Cornwall Council’s site gives further information and links, including where to find the original version of the map presented here: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/planning/planning-policy/adopted-plans/evidence-base/strategic-housing-land-availability-assessment/

Note dated November 23rd 2018

Does the Crantock decision in June 21018 mean that NDPs are useless?

These are personal notes, written in November 2018, by Roger Keyes, head of the Perranzabuloe NDP Housing Group on the question.

I don’t accept the simplistic conclusion that simply because Cornwall Council approved the housing application in Crantock in June 2018, then this means that NDPs are valueless.  From my perspective, the case supports the view that NDPs can have some value, even while they don’t fulfil the high expectations of what they could achieve, expectations promote by some proponents of NDPs.

The Crantock application was decided by the Central Planning Committee meeting held in St Austell on June 11th, a meeting that I attended.  For a relatively small development of 22 houses, the application was for an extension of a larger site already with permission, through which access would be gained.  This additional site extends in toward the village rather than out into open countryside and lies outside of the ‘Settlement Boundary’ as defined in the NDP.  As I heard it, a key justification given by planning officers for recommending approval of the application was their view that one of three existing planning permissions for new housing in Crantock, known I believe as Parsons Green, had stalled and its implementation was now unlikely or at least uncertain.  This would, they argued, create a short-fall in the supply of houses needed to cater for those on the HomeChoice Register for Crantock.  So they recommended approval.  After heated debate, the committee voted to approve it by 8 votes to 7.

(By the way, it wouldn’t surprise me if Crantock Parish think that they may have a case for judicial review since, at that time, the planning application for Parsons Green was still valid (it wouldn’t go on to expire until October 2018) and the fact that they believed it to be stalled was not ‘material.’  If this were to be the grounds for going to judicial review, it would underline the significance of this issue.)

So, what influence did the NDP have?

It was clear from the discussion that significant weight was being given to the contents of the NDP.  In the background was the fact that the Committee had deferred the application from February until after the referendum in May 2018.  Materially, the ‘Rural exception site’ outside of the ‘Settlement Boundary’ provisions of the NDP resulted in the developers having to increase the Affordable Housing provision from 30% of the houses on the site originally proposed, to 50% in the version approved eventually.

Are there any lessons for Perranzabuloe? 

In this case, Crantock had already fulfilled the allocation of houses in the Cornwall Local Plan (just as Perranzabuloe has), yet still the planning policy context dictated that if there is outstanding local need for Affordable Housing (AH), then applications for market-led developments will be given approval so that additional AH will be forthcoming.  In Crantock, the issue was has or hasn’t the ‘local need’ been accommodated.  In Perranzabuloe, the numbers on the HomeChoice Register are so much greater than the numbers of AH houses coming forward that such applications are likely to be approved, unless other considerations dictate otherwise.  This is the stance outlined the introduction to our Perranzabuloe NDP Housing group.

November 16th 2018

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