Increased housing targets will not immediately apply in Newcastle – as long as a new planning blueprint is submitted soon. Newcastle Borough Council has drawn up a draft local plan, to guide all development in the area up to 2040, based on a local housing requirement of 400 homes a year.
But under new national planning rules, the government has calculated Newcastle’s housing need as 545 homes a year – leaving an annual shortfall of 145. The borough council, though, can avoid being immediately affected by this change if it submits its draft plan for assessment by March 12. The government says new plans submitted before this date will be assessed under the old rules.
Council officials recently completed a final round of consultation on their draft plan, which includes site allocations for around 4,500 homes. They expect to submit the plan, along with all the consultation responses, before the end of the year.
However, the new national planning policy framework also says if a local plan meets less than 80 per cent of an area’s housing need, councils will be expected to start work on a new plan to address the shortfall. As Newcastle’s draft local plan only meets 73 per cent of the borough’s housing need, it may only be a temporary reprieve.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council, on the other hand, is still around two years away from being able to submit its new local plan. This means that the city’s new plan will have to include Stoke-on-Trent’s increased housing target of 948 homes a year.
Andrew Fear, cabinet member for strategic planning at Newcastle Borough Council, said: “Working with the community we have developed a strong Local Plan, which, in line with government requirements, is in the process of formally being submitted for consideration by the Planning Inspectorate.
“Not only does it identify areas for housing, business development and community facilities, it also specifies which areas should be protected from development.
“The new government guidance on housebuilding quotas effectively means that, if approved, once the current emerging Local Plan becomes effective in the financial year 2025/26, work will begin on developing a further Local Plan – however, given the need to have a rolling five year supply of appropriate land for housing, this is already effectively a continuous piece of work for officers.”
Scrutiny committee members at Newcastle Borough Council were given an update on the local plan process, following the conclusion of the final consultation. They were told that 1,407 representations had been received from 427 individuals and organisations.
Planning policy manager Allan Clarke said: “We’re now preparing the submission document for examination. This will include the consultation report, which goes through the representations made and identifies the main issues and provides a council response. We’re not providing an individual response for every individual representation. But every representation made will be send on to the inspector.”
It is anticipated that the examination of the local plan will include public hearings in the new year.
In response to a question from the committee, Mr Clarke said that the council website would be updated to include information such as the expected timescales once the plan had been submitted.
Committee chair Robert Bettley-Smith said: “I think all of us would agree that the priority has to be getting this plan submitted by the end of the year.”