…..“We believe our first target should be to mobilise public opinion to persuade the government to allow sites with planning permission to be included unconditionally in the estimate of the five year housing land supply.
Currently, if at any stage it can be shown that a residential site with planning permission has not been, or could not be, developed within the five year time limit, the site will immediately be removed from the estimate of the five year housing land supply. Local authorities are finding that, as they continue to grant planning permissions which then are stalled, their supply of housing land gets ever smaller. This contributes to their eventually falling victim to the five year housing land supply rule, thereby losing the ability to prevent housing development on sites which under the Local Plan were never intended for housing development.
The real problem is the five year housing land supply rule, but, as a first step, let us get a fairer way of estimating the housing land supply itself, viz. have sites with planning permission qualify for unconditional inclusion in the estimate of the housing land supply. That is politically achievable in the short term – it would require merely a change to Note 11 which qualifies par. 47 of the NPPF in which the rule is specified. So please, everyone start campaigning for that!
East Devon Watch 