Agenda item

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and its appendix and to make the following recommendation to the Council:

That the Cabinet recommends to the Council that, subject to the completion of the ongoing evidence-based work and the assessment of sites to meet the identified housing needs associated with the Local Plan Review, the Council will assess the ability to meet some or all of the unmet housing needs of approximately 44 dwellings per annum arising from the part of the South Downs National Park within Chichester District via the Chichester Local Plan Review.

RECOMMENDED TO THE COUNCIL

That, subject to the completion of the ongoing evidence-based work and the assessment of sites to meet the identified housing needs associated with the Local Plan Review, Chichester District Council will assess the ability to meet some or all of the unmet housing needs of approximately 44 dwellings per annum arising from the part of the South Downs National Park within Chichester District via the Chichester Local Plan Review.

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report and its appendix.

This item was introduced by Mrs Taylor.

Mr Allgrove was in attendance for this matter.

Mrs Taylor reminded the Cabinet that it was a pre-requisite for CDC’s Local Plan Review (LPR) to be found sound that the duty to co-operate (DTC) obligations had been fulfilled and a statement of common ground (SCG) agreed with its neighbouring authorities. The South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA), which would shortly be submitting its local plan for examination, had now asked CDC whether it would consider how it would be able to accommodate some or all of its unmet housing need within Chichester District. Whereas the Chichester Local Plan (CLP) had to be development-led, the SDNPA’s was landscape-led and this meant that the SDNPA did not have to meet its full housing need within the South Downs National Park (SDNP) and under the DTC it could request adjacent authorities to consider unmet need. When CDC’s extant CLP was being examined, it was anticipated that the supply of new housing within the Chichester District part of the SDNP would be approximately 70 dwellings per annum (dpa). However, under the SDNPA’s draft local plan the proposed supply was 81dpa which gave rise to an objectively assessed need (OAN) housing shortfall in the Chichester part of the SDNP of approximately 44dpa. The appended SDNPA letter set out why the SDNP could not meet its full OAN given the landscape protection accompanying national park status. The SDNPA’s request was considered by CDC’s Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel (DPIP) on 1 March 2018 and concerns were raised that (a) whilst the SDNPA had previously made CDC aware that it would not be able to meet its shortfall, it had only made a formal request to CDC to consider whether it would be able to meet its unmet need after the end of the consultation period and (b) in not meeting its OAN within the SDNP, this could result in sustainability issues in the SDNP villages within Chichester District. As to (b), although CDC was not the local planning  authority for the SDNP area within Chichester District, it was nevertheless  responsible for supplying other services within the SDNP such as housing, and insufficient new housing in the villages could make them unsustainable as well as having an unbalanced demographic. Accordingly, the DPIP recommended a revision of the recommendation before it (which is what then appeared in the Cabinet report), namely that any decision regarding the SDNPA’s request should be subject to the evidence-based work associated with the Chichester LPR and the assessment of sites to meet the identified housing needs. The DPIP was cognisant of the DTC to make the LPR sound but it felt that recognition of that obligation should be balanced with the need to ensure that the SDNP villages in the Chichester District area should remain viable.

Mr Allgrove did not add to Mrs Taylor’s introduction.

Mr Dignum, who was a member of the DPIP, briefly elaborated on the DPIP’s rationale for the revised recommendation.

Mr Frost alluded to the e-mail sent on 2 March 2018 to all members drawing their attention to the report on the Consultation on South Downs Local Plan Pre-Submission presented to the Cabinet meeting on 7 November 2017. That report referred to the proposed housing requirement for and its distribution within the Chichester District area. It should be borne in mind that towns such as Midhurst and Petworth were proposed to take housing numbers similar to Chichester District’s settlement hubs in the current CLP eg 180 homes for East Wittering/Bracklesham (CLP Policy 4) and even in smaller village settlements indicative parish housing numbers between ten and 50 were identified (CLP Policy 5). The concerns expressed by the DPIP were not relevant to the soundness of the SDNPA’s draft local plan and should not be a reason for objecting to it per se. In reply to a member’s question, Mr Frost confirmed that other local authorities within the SDNP had received a similar request from the SDNPA to take some of its unmet housing need and to agree an SCG accordingly.  

Decision

The Cabinet voted unanimously on a show of hands to make the recommendation to the Council set out below. 

RECOMMENDED TO THE COUNCIL

That, subject to the completion of the ongoing evidence-based work and the assessment of sites to meet the identified housing needs associated with the Local Plan Review, Chichester District Council will assess the ability to meet some or all of the unmet housing needs of approximately 44 dwellings per annum arising from the part of the South Downs National Park within Chichester District via the Chichester Local Plan Review.