Object
Solihull Local Plan (Draft Submission) 2020
Representation ID: 13717
Received: 10/12/2020
Respondent: Barwood Development Securities Ltd
Agent: stantec
Legally compliant? Yes
Sound? No
Duty to co-operate? Yes
P4D. We accept that the Council is justified in making provision for self and custom build housing in order to comply with the Self and Custom Housebuilding Act, the Housing and Planning Act, Planning Policy Guidance and the needs identified on the self-build register.
However, having considered the justification for Policy P4D and the Council’s ‘Meeting Housing Needs Topic Paper’, we disagree that the Council has sufficiently evidenced its proposed requirement for 5% of open market dwellings on residential sites of 100 units or more to comprise self and custom build plots.
Such a policy needs to be justified with robust evidence of need in order to be found sound. Currently, there are limited details provided as to how the 5% requirement has been derived and how this figure relates to local need and demand for self and custom build plots across the borough.
This prescriptive, borough-wide requirement to provide 5% threatens the Council’s ability to meet its local housing need requirement if there is no localised need or demand for such plots and so they remain vacant, as opposed to being built out and offered to the market as part of a more traditional developer build offering.
If self or custom build plots are not built out and remain vacant for a long period, this has adverse implications for viability and other Local Plan objectives and is also harmful to the visual and residential amenity of those living in close proximity to them.
We propose that an additional criterion is added to the policy, to allow flexibility and to ensure that there is evidence of local demand before this is required as part of a planning application proposal. We also propose an additional criterion whereby if there is no firm interest in self and custom build plots on a site within 6 months of the marketing of those plots, they could then be developed for open market housing instead.
This approach will enable the provision of self and custom housebuilding if local demand exists, but also ensure that homes are delivered to the market if such demand does not materialise in practice. This will maximise the ability of the Council to deliver its overall local housing need requirement.
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