To consider and agree for further technical assessment, the emerging findings of an initial study of land with potential for housing development within Herefordshire.

Wards: County-wide

The Team Leader Local Planning presented a report about the emerging findings of an initial study of land with potential for housing development within Herefordshire.  He said that the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) was a study of the potential availability of land for future housing development within Herefordshire for the period up to 2026. The Council was required to produce an assessment under the provisions of PPS3 Housing to demonstrate that the future housing requirement identified in the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) could be fulfilled. The study was a key component of the Local Development Framework and contributed to the preparation of the Core Strategy. The study’s initial report would be made available as an evidence based background paper for the Core Strategy options. It would help to establish whether those options for broad directions of growth were feasible, by indicating whether sufficient land was potentially available to achieve the levels of growth suggested. The assessment would also provide information for the Hereford Action Area Plan and any other development plan documents. Land identified would contribute to the overall RSS requirements including those for affordable housing. The technical information contained within the assessment would provide policy information for the Council. It was important to emphasise however that the identification of any site did not indicate that it would automatically receive planning permission or be allocated for housing development.  Not all of the sites identified would be either necessary or acceptable and it was not the role of the study to make a final judgement about individual sites.  There was also the point that the assessment was being undertaken in the knowledge that the housing figures proposed in the current review of the Regional Spatial Strategy had been challenged by the Government as being too low. Any addition to the future housing provision for Herefordshire would need to be considered further within the context of the Core Strategy and the Assessment.

The Team Leader Local Planning said that some 500 sites had been identified within the process although there were numerous issues with each.  Hereford and the market towns had been concentrated upon initially and the next phase would be to widen the scope to the rural areas.  The study had been undertaken against a backdrop of forward planning and there was now a need to widen it to include the conservation and environmental issues to help to determine those sites which could be progressed.  All sites had been investigated around each settlement to determine their suitability and it was likely that the majority of the smaller ones would be discounted because the emphasis was on areas of growth.  Having discussed the details of the report, the Committee expressed its approval of the proposed approach.

RESOLVED

THAT

1.         the processes undertaken to date in compiling the SHLAA be noted and supported; and

2.         it be recommended to the Cabinet Member (Environment and Strategic Housing) that Cabinet be requested to approve the initial mapped survey findings of the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment in respect of Hereford and the market towns as a basis for further technical work in support of the Local Development Framework, with publication of initial survey findings being carried out alongside the Core Strategy options consultation.