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Housing Supply (Policy S/DS: Development Strategy) The Buffer Many of the problems with the delivery of housing stem from the fixing of a housing requirement at plan-making stage that is too low and does not allow sufficient flexibility. Doing so means that:
a) there is insufficient flexibility should allocated sites in the plan do not come forward as anticipated;
b) the sites allocated in the plan have a monopoly position and the LPA is under great pressure to grant planning permission even where concerns exist around one or more aspects of the proposal; and
c) if housing delivery does not keep pace with needs, the immediately available recourse is to increase housing land supply through speculative planning applications predicated upon the presumption in favour of sustainable development – the plan-making system being too slow to respond quickly enough when a shortfall is identified.
The NPPF states (para. 74): “The supply of specific deliverable sites should in addition include a buffer (moved forward from later in the plan period) of: a) 5% to ensure choice and competition in the market for land; or b) 10% where the local planning authority wishes to demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable sites through an annual position statement or recently adopted plan, to account for any fluctuations in the market during that year; or c) 20% where there has been significant under delivery of housing over the previous three years, to improve the prospect of achieving the planned supply41.”
PPG states (ID: 68-022-20190722): “To ensure that there is a realistic prospect of achieving the planned level of housing supply, the local planning authority should always add an appropriate buffer, applied to the requirement in the first 5 years (including any shortfall), bringing forward additional sites from later in the plan period. This will result in a requirement over and above the level indicated by the strategic policy requirement or the local housing need figure. Buffers are not cumulative, meaning that an authority should add one of the following, depending on circumstances:
• 5% - the minimum buffer for all authorities, necessary to ensure choice and competition in the market, where they are not seeking to demonstrate a 5 year housing land supply;
• 10% - the buffer for authorities seeking to ‘confirm’ 5 year housing land supply for a year, through a recently adopted plan or subsequent annual position statement (as set out in paragraph 74 of the Framework), unless they have to apply a 20% buffer (as below); and
• 20% - the buffer for authorities where delivery of housing taken as a whole over the previous 3 years, has fallen below 85% of the requirement, as set out in the last published Housing Delivery Test results.”
Under proposed Policy S/DS: Development Strategy (commencing page 27), and the sub-heading of ‘Proposed Policy Direction’ (commencing page 29) the draft Plan states (page 31) (our emphasis): “In order to provide greater confidence that the identified housing needs in Policy S/JH New Jobs and Homes can be met, and that a continuing supply of housing can be demonstrated, we are proposing to allocate enough sites to provide approximately a 10% buffer so we have the flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances. …” A 10% buffer is generally considered the minimum possible if an authority is seeking to be able to demonstrate, on a rolling basis, a 10% buffer within its 5YHLS.
However, the ‘Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and Five Year Housing Land Supply’, published 1 st April 2021, explains that the Councils consider it appropriate to apply ‘lapse rates’, of between 6% and 10% to some projected delivery to take into account that some sites never come forward. So far as we can tell the Councils have not included reference to lapse rates, or made any provision for sites not coming forward, within the draft Plan.
Many Local Plans have been adopted with a 10% buffer built into the projected housing supply, which has proven to be insufficient, resulting in the consequences outlined above. The solution is relatively straightforward – include a larger buffer in the form of additional allocations. The former of these is generally preferable as, again as noted above, the plan-making system being too slow to respond quickly enough when a shortfall is identified. Inclusion of a larger buffer would have a number of benefits for all parties and provide greater certainty over the delivery of housing.
It would:
1) provide greater democratic oversight of housing supply, putting LPAs in control and able to respond proactively to housing delivery should a shortfall occur;
2) reduce uncertainty for local communities and the propensity for ‘speculative’ planning applications where a shortfall in housing is encountered;
3) remove the monopoly of land supply caused by the current plan-making system and increase the likelihood of the Councils being in a position to secure a policy compliant proposals;
4) provide a source of housing land which the Councils can draw upon to maintain deliver if the plan-making process takes longer than anticipated; and
5) reduce the number of planning appeals, thereby making cost savings for both the Councils and the Planning Inspectorate.
Summary It is thus evident that:
• The 10% buffer proposed is not sufficient and additional sites should be allocated across the Greater Cambridge area to provide sufficient flexibility. Further work will be required to identify the size of an increased buffer but we would suggest that this be at least 15% (equivalent to 6,660 homes on a housing requirement of 44,400 homes, or 7,245 homes on a housing requirement of 48,300 homes – see above).
The 5-Year Housing Land Supply
The NPPF states (para. 74): “… Local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing …”
It is usual practice for assessments of housing need and supply to be calculated over periods commencing on 1st April. PPG states (ID: 68-003-20190722): “The purpose of the 5 year housing land supply is to provide an indication of whether there are sufficient sites available to meet the housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies for the next 5 years. …”
The draft Plan does not explicitly address this need to demonstrate a 5YHLS. The ‘Greater Cambridge Housing Trajectory and Five Year Housing Land Supply’, published 1st April 2021, concludes that, applying a 5% buffer to the calculation, across the Greater Cambridge area, the Councils can, as of 1st April 2021, demonstrate a 5YHLS of 6.1 years. The ‘Housing Delivery Study for Greater Cambridge’, October 2021 projects the 5YHLS for an assumed adoption date of the emerging Local Plan of 1st April 2025.
However, in doing so it makes a numbers of errors and a number of assumptions are adopted that are flawed. We discuss just two of these below Firstly, it calculates the baseline requirement as being 2,111 dws x 5 years = 10,555 dws. Based on the emerging Local Plan including an overall housing requirement of 44,400 homes, the correct baseline requirement would be 2,114.3 dws x 5 years = 10,571 dws.
Secondly, the revised trajectory promulgated in the Delivery Study adds 516 dws to the delivery projected identified in the April 2021 Trajectory for the period 2020/21 to 2025/26, and a further 1,641 dws to the delivery projected for the period 2025/26 to 2029/30. This additional delivery has not been properly tested against the requirements for inclusion in a 5YHLS with a base date of 1st April 2021 and the Study ‘assumes’ that it will be able to be included.
If this 516 and 1,641 dws were removed from the supply and the figures in the April 2021 Trajectory relied upon, there would be a shortfall over this period of 414 dws. Taking into account just these two corrections results in the following:
TABLE PROVIDED IN ATTACHED DOCUMENT
Summary It is thus evident that:
• Whilst the Councils have been nominally able to show that they will be able to demonstrate a 5YHLS on adoption of the Plan, this projection is prone to challenge and is not robust, such that there is a high potential that the Councils will fail the 5YHLS test soon after adoption of the new Plan.
The Role of Small Sites
Under proposed Policy S/DS: Development Strategy (commencing page 29), and the sub-heading of ‘Spatial Strategy’ (commencing page 36) the draft Plan states (page 40) (our emphasis): “National planning policy says at least 10% of our housing requirement should be accommodated on sites no larger than 1 hectare, unless it can be shown that there are strong reasons why this cannot be achieved. …”
This is not completely correct. The NPPF states (para. 69): “Small and medium sized sites can make an important contribution to meeting the housing requirement of an area, and are often built-out relatively quickly. To promote the development of a good mix of sites local planning authorities should: a) identify, through the development plan and brownfield registers, land to accommodate at least 10% of their housing requirement on sites no larger than one hectare; unless it can be shown, through the preparation of relevant plan policies, that there are strong reasons why this 10% target cannot be achieved …”
There is a subtle but important difference between 10% of a housing requirement being accommodated on sites no larger than 1 hectare and 10% of a housing requirement being accommodated on identified sites of no larger than 1 hectare. The need to identify this land is critical to ensuring that sufficient small and medium sized sites do make an important contribution towards the meeting of the housing requirement, as required by national policy. Failure to identify sufficient sites jeopardises this objective.
The need to ‘identify’ sites is noted in the ‘PAS Local Plan Route Mapper Toolkit Part 2: Local Plan Form & Content Checklist’, last published in October 2021. On this point, the draft Plan simply states (page 40): “… The site commitments we have and new proposals suggested in this consultation, together with windfall sites expected to come forward would mean we exceed this requirement by some margin. …”
This statement falls far short of the explicitly clear requirement in national policy to identify sufficient sites to deliver 10% of the housing requirement. Section 6.6 of the Development Strategy Topic Paper discuss the requirement set out in paragraph 69 of the NPPF. It states (page 44): “The housing supply anticipated to deliver the First Proposals housing requirement includes existing housing commitments (adopted allocations and sites with planning permission), existing commitments for communal accommodation for students and older people (adopted allocations and sites with planning permission, converted to dwelling equivalents as set out in Appendix 2B), proposed new allocations, and a windfall allowance. All of these elements of housing supply include sites no larger than one hectare.”
The Topic Paper highlights on page 45 that only small sites sufficient to provide 2,077 homes are ‘identified’ (we do not concur with the inclusion in this allowance of C2 communal accommodation as including such runs counter to the intent of paragraph 69). This figures equates to less than half the 4,400 dwelling requirement that would result from paragraph 69 were the proposed housing requirement of 44,400 to be adopted. In addition, most of these ‘identified’ sites are within Cambridge, with very few within South Cambridgeshire. The remainder of the provision to meet the small sites requirement comprises the ‘windfall allowance’. Windfall sites are defined in the NPPF as: “Sites not specifically identified in the development plan.” and in the draft Plan as: “Sites which have not been specifically identified as available for development in the Local Plan. They normally comprise previously developed sites that have unexpectedly become available.” As such, windfall sites cannot, by definition, be ‘identified’.
The Council’s proposal to utilise the windfall allowance to meet the requirements of paragraph 69 runs counter to the intent of paragraph 69 – to ensure that Local Plans ‘identified’ small sites that could then be brought forward by small and medium-sized housebuilders to assist with housing delivery. The draft Plan continues (page 40): “… However, if we were to allocate specific sites it would need us to develop large numbers of sites in the rural area. …”
Here the draft Plan is almost accepting that it is not doing what national policy requires; by use of ‘however’ it is almost as though the draft Plan recognises the requirements of national policy but it has decided that this requirement should be set aside.
The draft Plan continues (page 40): “… This would compromise our development strategy, by directing a significant portion of growth to less sustainable locations, impacting on our response to the challenges of net zero carbon, and likely requiring large numbers of Green Belt releases.”
By this statement, the draft Plan explicitly sets out that it is contrary to national policy – the requirement set out in paragraph 69 of the NPPF has been set aside in favour of the proposed ‘development strategy’. Paragraph 69 of the NPPF is explicit: the 10% requirement applies (our emphasis): “… unless it can be shown that there are strong reasons why this cannot be achieved …”.
Neither the draft Plan, nor any of the supporting evidence base sets out a reason why the requirement ‘cannot be achieved’. Instead, the draft Plan simply concludes that it cannot as it would ‘compromise the development strategy’ – a strategy that was seemingly arrived at first. Indeed, the number of potential development sites submitted through the call-for-sites process makes it very evident the requirement can be met; it is simply that a decision has been taken that the draft Plan should not do so.
The case for allocating sufficient sites to accommodate 10% of the housing requirement on sites no larger than 1 hectare is very strong and widely recognised. As stated in Appendix 9 to the ‘Housing Delivery Study for Greater Cambridge’, dated October 2021, with regard to ‘meeting the small sites requirement’ (our emphasis): “Concentrating development at sites within Cambridge urban area and also allocating sites at villages is likely to yield a number of sites that would meet the NPPF Paragraph [69] definition of “small sites”, assisting with meeting the small sites requirement.”
Summary It is thus evident that:
• The draft Plan, knowingly, does not accord with national policy in paragraph 69 of the NPPF.
• The draft Plan does not provide any reason as to why it ‘cannot’ comply with the requirements of paragraph 69 of the NPPF.
• The draft Plan should be made compliant with the requirements of paragraph 69 of the NPPF by adapting it to include additional small sites no larger than 1 hectare, predominantly within South Cambridgeshire.
Development Strategy / Spatial Distribution (Policy S/DS: Development Strategy)
(NB See also our discussion above in relation to: ‘Development Strategy / Spatial Distribution’. This is repeated (in part) here due to the manner in which we will need to submit the representations / the way in which they will be considered separately to each other.)
Under proposed Policy S/DS: Development Strategy (commencing page 29), and the sub-heading of ‘Proposed Policy Direction’ (commencing page 29) the draft Plan states (page 31) (our emphasis): “In the rest of the rural area, we propose a very limited amount of development:
• Small new sites for housing and employment at villages that have very good public transport access, to help our rural communities thrive;
• New employment sites in the countryside meeting specific business needs; and
• Windfall development - an allowance for homes on unallocated land, which would need to be consistent with policy requirements in the Plan, including Policy SS/SH: Settlement Hierarchy, which sets out scales of development in different categories of village.”
It is considered that this is akin to the abandoning of the rest of the rural area; whilst those villages identified as having ‘very good public transport access’ will be allowed to ‘thrive’, essentially no provision is being made, over the course of the next generation, to enable any other communities to grow. In short, other than a limited number of villages the Development Strategy will lead to the stagnation and decay of the rural area.
As we discuss below in relation to the ‘rest of the rural area’, the rural area accommodates 5 Rural Centres, 13 Minor Rural Centres and 33 Group Villages, not to mention 55 Infill Villages. The draft Plan proposes the allocation of only 6 new sites / 384 new homes, to this area – a ‘paltry attempt to meet local needs. As evidenced by the table on page 32 of the draft plan, this figure equates to just 3.3% of the new housing allocations proposed.
This is directly contrary to national policy in the NPPF, which includes (para. 79): “To promote sustainable development in rural areas, housing should be located where it will enhance or maintain the vitality of rural communities. Planning policies should identify opportunities for villages to grow and thrive, especially where this will support local services. Where there are groups of smaller settlements, development in one village may support services in a village nearby.”
In addition (para. 84): “Planning policies … should enable: … d) the retention and development of accessible local services and community facilities, such as local shops, meeting places, sports venues, open space, cultural buildings, public houses and places of worship.”
The draft Plan completely fails to recognise that by not allowing rural communities to grow, irrespective of whether they have a full range of services and facilities and ‘very good’ public transport links, it will run counter to the guidance in paragraphs 79 and 84 and almost certainly lead to the loss of services and facilities and a reduction in rural sustainability.
This national policy is a far more nuanced and sustainable approach than the blunt tool being proposed in the draft Plan. Two easy options for a solution to this are to either:
i) increase the housing requirement as discussed above and accommodate the addition 1,900 (48,300 – 44,400 = 1,900) to 4,700 (1,900 (as above) plus increased buffer: 7,245 – 4,400 = 2,845; total = 4,745) homes on sustainable sites in sustainable locations (the HELAA process makes it clear that these do exist) within the rural area; and/or
ii) not include the ‘additional’ / ‘faster’ delivery of between 1,500 and 2,500 new homes on the edge of Cambridge / at new settlements, thereby providing increased flexibility and relieving the pressure to continue the high rate of delivery experienced in recent year, and to instead accommodate these homes on sustainable sites in sustainable locations within the rural area.
With regard to the latter option, the Development Strategy Topic Paper notes (page 74) (our emphasis): “… Our Housing Delivery Evidence suggests that our assumptions on housing delivery at Northstowe and Waterbeach can be faster than we previously estimated, such that they could contribute additional homes towards our housing need to 2041. …”
The ‘evidence’ included in the ‘Housing Delivery Study for Greater Cambridge’, dated October 2021, is scant and apparently based solely, and entirely, on the expectation that Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) will facilitate faster delivery than previously expected. However, virtually no evidence to support this contention, which also fails to take into account whether the higher rate of delivery can be sustained in all other respects (e.g. highway and other infrastructure improvements not capable of adopting MMC), or whether the demand will persist for the higher rate.
The suggestion in the draft Plan is notable for it’s use of ‘can’ and ‘could’ – in particular the expected delivery of an additional 1,500 new homes at Northstowe and Waterbeach is readily accepted as being something that ‘could’ happen – whether it is ‘likely’ to happen is not addressed.
This conflicts with the approach taken to the expected level of employment growth as discussed above in relation to ‘Housing Needs’ / ‘The Housing Requirement’, where the Councils have entirely set aside the higher level of employment growth that their own evidence identifies ‘could’ happen in favour of what they consider is ‘most likely’ to happen. Noting this, in regard to the Development Strategy and distribution of development, it would appear that the draft Plan is seeking to have it’s cake and eat it, or to put it another way, adopting one approach in one regard, and a contrasting one in another. At best this suggests a lack on consistency in the Plan.
Summary
It is thus evident that:
• The quantum of housing allocated to the rural area is ‘paltry’ and insufficient to enable existing communities to ‘thrive’ and/or ‘grow’.
• The approach taken to the distribution of development, especially the ‘additional’ / ‘extra’ on the edge of Cambridge / at Northstowe and Waterbeach, is not supported by robust evidence, and is an approach that conflicts with that taken to employment growth.
• Two options for a solution would be to either:
increase the housing requirement by 1,900 to 4,700 homes as discussed; and/or
not include the ‘additional’ / ‘faster’ delivery of between 1,500 and 2,500 new homes on the edge of Cambridge / at new settlements, and to instead accommodate these homes on sustainable sites in sustainable locations within the rural area.
SUMMARY
Policy S/DS: Development Strategy, in respect to ‘Housing Supply’ (and in particular in respect to ‘The Buffer’, ‘The 5-Year Housing Land Supply’ and ‘The Role of Small Sites’), and ‘Development Strategy / Spatial Distribution’
With regard to Housing Supply (Section 2.1 of the draft Plan):
The 10% buffer proposed is not sufficient and additional sites should be allocated across the Greater Cambridge area to provide sufficient flexibility. Further work will be required to identify the size of an increased buffer but we would suggest that this be at least 15% (equivalent to 6,660 homes on a housing requirement of 44,400 homes, or 7,245 homes on a housing requirement of 48,300 homes – see above).
Whilst the Councils have been nominally able to show that they will be able to demonstrate a 5YHLS on adoption of the Plan, this projection is prone to challenge and is not robust, such that there is a high potential that the Councils will fail the 5YHLS test soon after adoption of the new Plan. o With regard to the role of ‘small sites’, the draft Plan, knowingly, does not accord with national policy in paragraph 69 of the NPPF, does not provide any reason as to why it ‘cannot’ comply with the requirements of paragraph 69 of the NPPF, and should be made compliant with the requirements of paragraph 69 of the NPPF by adaptation to include additional small sites no larger than 1 hectare, predominantly within South Cambridgeshire.
With regard to the Development Strategy / Spatial Distribution (Section 2.1 of the draft Plan): The quantum of housing allocated to the rural area is ‘paltry’ and insufficient to enable existing communities to ‘thrive’ and/or ‘grow’.
The approach taken to the distribution of development, especially the ‘additional’ / ‘extra’ on the edge of Cambridge / at Northstowe and Waterbeach, is not supported by robust evidence, and is an approach that conflicts with that taken to employment growth. Two options for a solution would be to either: - increase the housing requirement by 1,900 to 4,700 homes as discussed; and/or - not include the ‘additional’ / ‘faster’ delivery of between 1,500 and 2,500 new homes on the edge of Cambridge / at new settlements, and to instead accommodate these homes on sustainable sites in sustainable locations within the rural area.
