Calderdale may require fewer homes within its Local Plan after a review of the way housing need is calculated.
The government requires local councils to produce a Local Plan which identifies land to meet their requirements for new housing and economic development, over the next 15 years.
The Department for Communities and Local Government’s ‘Planning for the Right Homes in the Right Places’ guidelines, published in September 2017, includes a new way to work out how many homes each area will need to meet this demand.
Using the new formula Calderdale would now need around 13,000 new homes between 2017 and 2032, instead of the 17,000 homes required using the old methodology.
Once existing planning permissions and windfalls are taken into account this means the figure required to be allocated would be under 10,000 and we will be looking at further opportunities on brownfield sites and increasing densities of town centre developments.
Calderdale Council’s Cabinet will be asked to endorse an adjustment to the initial draft of the Local Plan to reflect these changes in the housing requirement.
Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning, Housing and Environment, Cllr Daniel Sutherland said:
“The choices we make today within the Local Plan, will affect our children and our children’s children. It’s vital that we consider them carefully and it’s right that we plan for the future. Our neighbourhoods need new homes and for our communities to thrive we need to encourage investment and regeneration.
“These changes have given us the opportunity to refine the draft Local Plan to make sure that the sites which have been identified for development are sustainable and realistic; protect the green spaces which people value the most and have the greatest potential for economic growth.”
The Council is currently making excellent progress towards the publication of its Local Plan. Unlike many other councils, this will be a single Plan incorporating both strategic policies and land allocations, so Calderdale is ahead of many councils which have an adopted Core Strategy, but have made limited progress on allocating sites for development.
The revised draft Local Plan will be published in the summer of 2018. Members of the public will be able to make formal representations in response to the Plan, although the Council will no longer be able to make any further changes to the document.
In 2019 the Council will submit the Local Plan, together with the comments from the public, to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
Calderdale’s Local Plan will then be examined in detail by the Secretary of State.
The examination could last around nine months. Adoption of the plan by Calderdale Council, following receipt of the Inspector’s Report, is expected to be confirmed by the end of 2019.
The Cabinet will meet to consider the report at 6pm on Monday 4 December 2017 at Halifax Town Hall.