CHILTERN DISTRICT COUNCIL

Notes of the Scrutiny Working Group

formed to discuss a proposal for a Review of Housing in the District

held on 29 November 2002

At the Scrutiny meeting on 15 October 2002, it was resolved: -

‘That a working group consisting of Councillors R T Young, B M Curson and C H Spruytenburg be set up to work in conjunction with the Director of Planning and the Environment to prepare a proposal for a Review of Housing in the District’.

Before discussion commenced, Gill Gowing reminded Members of the procedure for the scoping of reviews and setting the terms of reference. Then, in conjunction with Carol Castle, Gill Gowing went on to describe the various plans and strategies that were in place with regard to housing at district, county and regional levels.

Members were advised that the housing allocations for the four districts in Bucks to 2016 had not yet been determined. Once these were known work on the Local Plan would be able to progress. The group was informed that a new planning system was being introduced by Government, which would abolish structure plans at a County level. In their place would be  Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Frameworks,. Despite these emerging new developments, County and District Councils were still obliged to continue producing Structure and Local Plans under the current system.

Members were advised that a review of the policy H6 for affordable housing was in progress. The sites that came up for development in this area were mainly less than one hectare and therefore the Council had no power to insist on an proportion of affordable housing. The level at which this could happen was sites over one hectare or for 25 dwellings or more.

Public consultations had commenced on the proposal to vary the Local Plan to help provide affordable housing by reducing the threshold to 15 or 10 dwellings at which levels developers would have to provide a specified percentage of affordable homes.

In seeking to determine the scope of a Scrutiny review the Group considered the focus should be on how to secure more affordable housing through the planning process.

It was pointed out that under the Constitution the Local Plan formed one of the Policy Framework documents that Scrutiny had a specific role in considering any amendment to.  When the Executive wished to recommend a change or amendment to the Policy or Budgetary framework to Council it first had to be referred to the Scrutiny Committee.  The comments of the Scrutiny Committee, if any, would be reported to the Executive and they would have an opportunity to consider those comments prior to recommending any amendment to full Council.

It was decided that for an informed scrutiny review of the proposed change to Policy H6 that it would be helpful for Members to attend a seminar on the planning aspects of housing provision prior to formally considering the proposed change to Policy H6. It was agreed that this seminar should be open to all Members of the Council, however the Working Group considered that it was imperative that all those to be involved in the scrutiny review of Policy H6 be required to attend.

All agreed that for a successful Scrutiny of documents formally referred to the Scrutiny Committee by the Executive it was necessary for the Scrutiny Committee to have as much notice as possible so that any training and preparatory work could be carried out in due time. It was thought that when the Scrutiny Committee came to carry out the formal Scrutiny of Policy H6 it would be helpful to have an independent supplementary report from the Scrutiny Working Group. It was hoped that the Scrutiny Committee would adopt this pattern of anticipating upcoming areas for scrutiny in the future. The comment was made that thinking through the issues related to scrutinising a single policy within one of the Policy Framework documents had helped in clarifying the role of Scrutiny in relation to scrutinising those documents which under the Constitution had to be referred to Scrutiny prior to being recommended to full Council.

Gill Gowing was asked to put together a flow chart of the various stages in the Review of policy H6 indicating both the formal and discretionary stages where the Scrutiny Committee could be involved.

Councillor Campbell went on to state that it was necessary to not only look at the issue of affordable housing but also the impact of these policies on other service areas. The issue of the lack of affordable housing in the district would never be resolved completely therefore it would also be appropriate to consider how the existing services needed to be amended to serve the community i.e. in relation to the ageing population.

Members were advised of the work being carried out to support local village shops and the funding that was available from the Countryside Agency.

Councillor Campbell suggested that the provision of low cost housing in rural areas by housing associations could also be a possible area for investigation.

Gill Gowing went on to advise of the other initiatives in relation to affordable housing that the Scrutiny Committee could look at.  In particular there were two reports that would be going to the Executive in December 2002 which would be suggesting that consideration should be given to the use of two specific sites in the Council’s ownership for affordable housing. It would be possible for the Committee to scrutinise these proposals in relation to the Council’s role as the owner of the land but they could not examine any decision of the planning committee in respect of any planning application on these sites

Councillor Campbell also put forward that the Committee might wish to look at the Rural White Paper adopted in November 2000, to assess whether the Council had responded appropriately to it.

The conclusion of the Working Group was that the efforts of Scrutiny should be focussed on scrutinising the proposed change to policy H6.  In order to do this effectively Gill Gowing should produce a flow chart of the stages in the process where there was a role for Scrutiny and to organise a seminar on the planning aspects of housing provision to assist the Scrutiny Committee in understanding the issues involved and in making an informed response to the Executive’s proposals.