Agenda item

Written Question from Councillor Robin Stuchbury to Councillor Naylor, Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Regulatory Services

The Affordable Housing paper provides a plan for social, affordable and key worker housing to meet the priorities of the Homelessness Strategy recently agreed at Council.  Please could you assure me that the recommendations put forward meet the aspirations of the Notice of Motion on Affordable Housing which was agreed at Council on 9 December 2020 and can we be assured of the feasibility of the Council delivering affordable and social housing through the use of the property portfolio over the coming years, so as to alleviate the waiting list for houses in Buckinghamshire.

Question from Councillor Alison Wheelhouse to Councillor Gareth Williams, Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration

At recent Full Council, you confirmed that alternatives to the Standard Method are being looked at for calculating local housing need, as permitted by the NPPF.

The 2018 ONS household projection data show the Council’s recently produced 5 Year Housing Land Supply to be massively under-stated. Applying the 2018 data to the Standard Method, for example, by my analysis, South Bucks has c. 9 years housing land supply and Wycombe has a 27 year supply.

Can you confirm this to be the case, provide details of the alternative methods being considered, and explain why the alternative methods were not set out in the Council’s recent 5 year Housing Land Supply Statement.  

Question from Councillor Robin Stuchbury to Councillor Nick Naylor, Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Regulatory Services

“The Affordable Housing paper provides a plan for social, affordable and key worker housing to meet the priorities of the Homelessness Strategy recently agreed at Council.  Please could you assure me that the recommendations put forward meet the aspirations of the Notice of Motion on Affordable Housing which was agreed at Council on 9 December 2020 and can we be assured of the feasibility of the Council delivering affordable and social housing through the use of the property portfolio over the coming years, so as to alleviate the waiting list for houses in Buckinghamshire.”

Response from Councillor Naylor

“There is an ever growing demand for affordable housing in Buckinghamshire, and nationally. Our register currently stands at around 4800 households, and more recently, applications have started to increase in number, quite markedly. Whilst demand for affordable housing far outstrips supply, the Affordable Housing Position Statement proposes a number of ways in which we can seek to start to close the gap and increase supply of affordable housing, including the potential use of disused sites within the Council’s property portfolio, subject to a robust business case and governance requirements. The position statement highlights sites that are currently under consideration, and we will be examining the feasibility of these sites in greater detail and if viable, they will be brought forward with elements of affordable housing on them.”

The Leader commented that it was important to increase the supply of affordable housing and some sites had been identified for this but where inevitably sites were put forward a local protest group could argue that particular site was not suitable. It was important to have affordable housing for key workers and young people.

Question from Councillor Alison Wheelhouse to Councillor Gareth Williams, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration

“At recent Full Council, you confirmed that alternatives to the Standard Method are being looked at for calculating local housing need, as permitted by the NPPF.

The 2018 ONS household projection data show the Council’s recently produced 5 Year Housing Land Supply to be massively under-stated. Applying the 2018 data to the Standard Method, for example, by my analysis, South Bucks has c. 9 years housing land supply and Wycombe has a 27 year supply.

Can you confirm this to be the case, provide details of the alternative methods being considered, and explain why the alternative methods were not set out in the Council’s recent 5 year Housing Land Supply Statement.”

Response from Councillor Williams

“In the preparation of local plans, the National Planning Policy Framework prescribes the use of the government’s Standard Method for calculating local housing need unless exceptional circumstances justify an alternative approach which also reflects current and future demographic trends and market signals.  The use of the standard method is therefore not mandatory.  However, if local councils feel that circumstances warrant an alternative approach, they can expect this to be scrutinised more closely during the examination of their local plan.

The Standard Method uses as its baseline the DCLG 2014-based national household projections.  More recent 2016 and 2018-based household projections have been published by the Office for National Statistics and we have been considering what implications their use might have for the assessment of local housing need that informs the Buckinghamshire Local Plan.

For the purposes of calculating the five-year housing land supply and the Housing Delivery Test, however, the government does mandate the use of the standard method for assessing local housing need in areas where there is no up-to-date local plan, i.e. in the East and South planning areas.

In those areas where the Council has an up-to-date local plan, we must use the housing requirement from the VALP and the Wycombe Local Plan for the five-year supply calculations.  Below is an extract from the Planning Practice Guidance on this matter:

What housing requirement figures should authorities use when calculating their 5 year housing land supply?

Housing requirement figures identified in adopted strategic housing policies should be used for calculating the 5 year housing land supply figure where:

·         The plan was adopted in the last 5 years, or

·         The strategic housing policies have been reviewed within the last 5 years and found not to need updating.

In other circumstances the 5 year housing supply will be measured against the area’s local housing need calculated using the standard method.

Paragraph:005 Reference ID 68-005-20190722

Revision date: 22 July 2019

Therefore, our calculations have been based on the figures in the table below:

Table 2: Annual housing requirements

The Leader referred to mention of the Levelling up Bill in the Queens Speech and a media article on changes in planning from Michael Gove. There was no detail in the article on the five year land supply or duty to co-operate. The Council would look at the implications of the Bill once the details were available.