…
East Devon has 663 empty homes, up on the year by 152…
so, its up BY 152 not FROM 152 – so it’s still bad and still ? Cranbrook.
Category Archives: Local Plan
And then watch builders develop in multiples of 50!
Will the government never learn – or perhaps it doesn’t want to:
Progress of Local Plan: anyone know the difference between “could and should” and “can and will”?
It is almost an embarrassment to publish the latest correspondence between EDDC and the Local Plan Inspector, Mr Thickett. The letter from EDDC with its “action plan” is so vague and indeterminate that it is simply a “wish list” (could and should) rather than an “action plan” (can and will).
You can almost hear the irritation in Mr Thickett’s reply. However, he at least does try to set some sort of timetable (October/November) for the next stage of the process.
Interesting that the whole process will take us up to election time – so developer free-for-all will probably continue till then.
The correspondence:
Letter from EDDC:
The “action plan”
and Mr Thickett’s reply
All correspondence and details of information provided for the Local Plan is HERE
The shape of things to come?
…..Labour victory in Hammersmith and Fulham has raised questions over the future of Terry Farrell’s £8billion masterplan for Earls Court
Speaking to the BBC after the local elections, Labour Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Stephen Cowan, said that some planned developments in the area would now be scrapped – although he wouldn’t reveal which ones.
The first phase of the Earls Court scheme designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), Terry Farrell Architects and Pilbrow & Partners, had been given planning permission back in April 2014 and includes the demolition of two estates and the Earls Court Exhibition Centre.
Prior to the election Labour councillors had been in discussion with local residents against the demolition of the surrounding estates and had issued a manifesto pledging to take immediate measures to protect homes. .….
“Non Metropolitan England” – your views sought
The non-political and independent commission will be chaired by Sir John Peace, who is also the Chairman of Standard Chartered PLC, and Burberry, as well as Chairman of Nottinghamshire’s local Growth Board. Sir John has been asked by the Local Government Association, which represents almost 400 councils, to lead this major review alongside a panel of leading figures from business, the voluntary and public sectors.
They will explore the unique characteristics of non-metropolitan economies and their drivers, as well as what more can be done to free up their public services to promote growth and deliver better outcomes for residents. By the autumn, it will make recommendations for reform to shape the way economic growth and public service transformation are supported in the future.
As part of the review, the commission wants to hear from everyone who has a stake in non-metropolitan areas. It is calling for evidence from business leaders, voluntary and faith groups, community and public service leaders. It has today launched a public Call for Evidence.
– See more at: http://www.local.gov.uk/web/guest/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/6207801/NEWS#sthash.xVcbVUsa.dpuf
Yet another big businessman whose personal and public agenda is “growth” to decide the fate of people he probably rarely meets.
EDDC Overview and Scrutiny Committee – it’s not too late …
…to include an agenda item of the next O and S committee in June on the “Business Task and Finish Forum” investigating the creation, running and administration of the East Devon Business Forum and its effect on planning and the Local Plan debacle. You know, the one you kicked into the long grass for as long as possible.
Oh, and where is Mr Harrison – EDDC Economic Development Officer – these days? Since his job as Hon Sec of EDBF finished he seems to have gone totally silent when, in the past, he had such a lot to say about individual developments, particularly those of EDBF members.
And just when “economic development” is an even hotter topic.
What exactly are we paying (and paying handsomly) this person to do?
Coalescence between Exeter and East Devon continues apace
Too close to the M5? Not a problem! (Just don’t open your windows or sit in the garden perhaps? Bet the “affordables” – if they ever happen – are closest!).
Coalescence between West Dorset and East Devon continues (see Uplyme link) but, oddly, no coalescence between the Blackdown Hills and South Somerset.
An interesting view on the housing “crisis”
Demand and need are two very different things:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/21/no-housing-crisis-just-very-british-sickness
Performance targets can produce perverse results
In particular, the target that all planning applications should be determined within 13 weeks – something we have had rather a lot of trouble with in East Devon when contentious planning applications have been rushed through with the excuse that the target must be met:
Minister friend of Cameron attacks Boles (but only in words!)
Full article from today’s Daily Mail (link at the end of the article)
The countryside could be swamped with thousands of unwanted homes under new planning laws, a minister warned yesterday. In an outspoken attack, Ed Vaizey says his own government’s ‘presumption in favour of development’ is artificially raising estimates of housing demand. In a letter to planning minister Nick Boles, the culture minister lays bare Tory fears that the coalition’s decision to tear up planning laws risks alienating traditional supporters and costing votes.
Mr Vaizey, who is one of David Cameron’s closest allies, says the projected levels of housing need in parts of the countryside – including his own Oxfordshire constituency – are up to three times the true figure. He warns this has ‘significant consequences for many local communities which are now faced with levels of growth that will fundamentally change the nature of settlements’. He calls for an ‘urgent review of the planning methodology that leads to such massive numbers of homes being planned, so that more realistic outcomes result’. He says councils are being forced to earmark more and more land for housing or risk falling foul of the development presumption that leaves them little power to block projects they think excessive.
In his reply, Mr Boles defended the push for new housing, saying: ‘One of the key constraints that is affecting growth in some of our most prosperous and dynamic regions are high house prices and affordability. I am sure you will agree this is something we are all working hard to change.’ And he suggested that Mr Vaizey had got some of his facts wrong. He said the new assessment of housing need ‘did not automatically invalidate’ local housing plans and confirmed building on the green belt should be allowed only in exceptional circumstances.
Mr Boles said Oxfordshire should consider creating a new garden city if local communities were unhappy with the idea of expanding existing developments. Mr Vaizey had warned that the lax rules around infrastructure meant that developers often delivered vital services such as roads and schools years after the houses are built.
The result, he says, is that ‘new and existing residents suffer a severe decline in services for a number of years’. Mr Vaizey’s comments are focused on the situation in Oxfordshire, where there is controversy over official projections that the county needs 100,000 new homes. He says demographic trends in his own district of the county, the Vale of the White Horse, suggest an extra 468 homes a year are needed. But the ‘national methodology’ has produced a figure up to three times higher.
Four local councils in Oxfordshire have raised concerns about the plans. These include West Oxfordshire, which is run by Mr Cameron’s election agent Barry Norton. Mr Norton said official housing projections were wrong and were likely to be challenged by the council.
The Prime Minister this week defended the planning changes, and said the result was that ‘planning applications are going up, house building is going up – a 23 per cent increase in houses built’. He said the planning system was locally driven, and denied claims that Tory councils were blocking housing developments. He added: ‘We’ve been building in West Oxfordshire more houses than was actually set out under our plan. I don’t accept that all these councils are nimbys.’
Uplyme, AONB, and the future of cross-district co-operation
A welcome respose from East Devon District Councillor Ian Thomas inreaction to local and EDA concern about the proposals for 350 houses in the AONB near Uplyme. This would take overspill from West Dorset.
Some of what is included in Ian’s blog is about the grey areas of Village Plans and the SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments). Some EDA members have direct experience of these processes being heavily and unduly influenced by councillors not declaring interests.
However, we are where we are. At least there is some evidence emerging of timescales for presenting properly sourced evidence back to the Planning Inspector.
What the general public thinks of the “housing crisis”
The BBC has a “Your Say” section on its website and it recently published an article about the housing crisis. Here are the comments which produced the three most popular comments:
We’ve got around 850,000 empty houses in this country. Unfortunately, many of them are in the ‘wrong place’ – in economically deprived areas rather than in the South East. The solution is to regenerate these areas and draw people to them, taking advantage of much cheaper housing in the process. But this would deflate the bubble the govt is anxious to create in the illusion of economic competence.
The problem is the phrase ‘shortage of housing’ always getting linked to lack of building activity. The problem is that over a million homes have been removed from the market by buy-to-let investors who with tax breaks have pushed up prices beyond the means of the people who would normally purchase such properties. That’s your problem
The public have been warning the “experts” for months that the housing market is oveheating despite Osbournes assurances that it wouldn`t. What`s needed is a lot more affordable housing. The “Help to buy” scheme also needs to be downgraded to morgages up to £200,000 and not the current £600,000. If you need help to buy a £600,000 house then you`re over-stretching yourself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27459663
No Local Plan until “at least 2015”
http://www.devon24.co.uk/news/local_plan_delayed_until_next_year_1_3601887
No burning the midnight oil, then – just a nice, slow amble.
“The delay in finishing the Local Plan is expected to cost taxpayers a further £12,000 in consultants’ fees in addition to an ‘inspection budget’ for 2013/14 of £110,000.”
But still they must move to Skypark: bet the midnight oil IS burning for that one!
The “duty to co-operate” – how abour some co-operation to take OUR overspill now?
The National Planning Policy Statement requires councils to alert other councils around them when it seems that they cannot build enough houses in their own district and to ask those councils to take some or all of their overspill.
Exeter, of course, now has not only Cranbrook to take its overspill in East Devon but also the thousands of extra houses agreed by EDDC’s Development
Management Committee in the EDDC area adjoining Pinhoe.
Now we have an application for (initially?) 300 houses at Uplyme to accommodate the “needs” of Lyme Regis (perhaps for more second homes?) on the A3052 at Uplyme in East Devon.
It might seem now, that having accommodated Lyme and Exeter we have run out of space for our own houses.
So, what about South Somerset which conveniently shares a Chief Executive with us and is also coincidentally in similar trouble with its Local Plan.
There are plenty of green fields between Axminster and Chard (particularly around Yarcombe in the Blackdown Hills near the border) and so convenient for commuting to Exeter, Taunton and beyond, especially if the A303 is widened.
Why hasn’t the Chief Executive been talking to himself?
East Devon Alliance welcomes dialogue with local councillor for Uplyme
We welcome Cllr Ian Thomas’s contribution to the early discussions about the prospective planning application near Uplyme in the AONB (see post and comment below). Open discussion through forums such as this (or by the soon to be restricted contributions at East Devon Development Management Committee meetings) is essential at this vulnerable time. Thank you, Ian.
We applaud Ian’s stated support for AONBs and the natural environment, but he may perhaps concede that the actions of his party in this district have spoken more loudly than his words: EDDC’s tardiness in getting its act together on the Local Plan and a five-year land supply have surely put greenfield sites, including those designated AONB, at risk”.
It was clear, too, from a recent Development Management Committee meeting to discuss an action plan for the revised Local Plan that there is likely to be much more development near Exeter as well as around selected villages and in the area near Lyme Regis. Coupled with the Planning Inspectorate’s observation that EDDC had failed to co-operate with West Dorset on the Local PLan, it seems to a number of us that the Uplyme proposal could be the first cuckoo in this unwelcome spring.
A3052 today, Uplyme and Rousdon tomorrow – another Cranbrook?
A developer has put in an application for 300 houses on the land currently used for Lyme Regis’s summer park and ride scheme. The land is in East Devon but is adjacent to Lyme Regis. This was not in the last Local Plan and did not figure in the Current Local Plan.
The developer (Hallam Homes) had a poorly -advertised “consultation” exhibition in Lyme Regis recently but nowhere in East Devon. This is contrary to the requirement that a development in East Devon must be advertised “appropriately” within the district.
It may be that the villages of Uplyme and Rousdon do not think that this development will affect them. Think again. Today, it is one field on the A3052 but it is only a matter of time in this development-led era in East Devon that the current developers (or new ones) will decide to link up the parishes of Uplyme and Rousdon with the development now being planned. Before long this could be a new town the size of Cranbrook.
As an extension to Lyme Regis, this would totally be in East Devon and the Dorset economy would be stretched for doctors, dentists, schools, etc just as the East Devon economy would be stretched.
Is this “sustainable”? Who in their right mind would think so? Where are the jobs? How will people commute? Where is the necessary infrastructure?
This is the Jurassic Coast tourist route – already developers have their eye on the Exeter end of this road – how long before we have the road completely covered in a ribbon development of houses from Lyme to Exeter and from the A3o52 to Raymonds Hill?
Greens say English housing system bust at every level
Boles: do his left and right hands understand they are part of the same body?
The man who encourages councils to build everywhere now sats “don’t build everywhere”.
It’s a sure sign we are in an election period when we see ministers rowing back from unpleasant policies they know will lose them votes!
Stop unnecessarily threatening the green belt, Nick Boles tells councils
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10828669/Stop-unnecessarily-threatening-the-green-belt-Nick-Boles-tells-councils.html
Why Local Plans fail
This is a somewhat technical article but one point made is that your Local Plan will fail if you have not documented and minuted things such as how you have dealt with the “Duty to Co-operate”.
Our council is very lax with its minutes: some meetings have no minutes at all, some have minutes that seem to bear little resemblance to the meetings that took place and some minutes are so secret that no-one except those in the meetings get to see them. Transparency pays off in the end.
And just in case EDDC tries to make the same mistakes again …..
A judge has ruled quite clearly that attempting to use figures that are pre-National Planning Policy Framework is NOT allowed:
http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1293181/local-plan-ruling-a-warning
East Devon Watch 