Rother Councillors Want 'Challenge' To Government Housing Targets

Councillors in Rother have expressed frustrations at “unrealistic” housing targets from the government.

Speaking at a District Council planning meeting on Thursday (January 14), several councillors criticised the district’s recently-set Local Housing Need (LHN) target – in other words the number of homes the government expects to see built each year.

Their comments came during discussion of a report on the council’s five-year housing land supply, which is a measure of whether the area has enough approved or allocated sites to meet its housing target.

As a result of the new figure, the report warned, the council’s housing land supply had (as of April last year) fallen below three years.  

This did not sit well with many committee members, including Conservative councillor Tony Ganly.

He said:

“The LHN does not take into account any specific consideration of local circumstances or constraints. 

“In the case of Rother, it doesn’t take into account the fact that something approaching 90 per cent of the landmass is designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Site of Specific Scientific Interest or similarly protected, which severely – and I suppose quite rightly – limits development.

“It has been abundantly clear over many years that we cannot achieve the target set by government. 

“On average 203 houses have been built each year over the last 10 years, but completions have increased in the last three years to I think 229 per year.

"This is nowhere near the previous target of 484 dwellings per annum never mind the new target of 736. 

“Surely any reasonable person would conclude that the target is unrealistic.”

Cllr Ganly said he was particularly concerned about the impact of the new target on planning policies contained within neighbourhood plans.

This is because, when a council has a housing land supply of under five years, national planning policy puts presumption in favour of sustainable development unless there are significant adverse impacts.

Conflicting with a recent neighbourhood plan would normally be considered to be such an adverse impact, but not when the housing supply falls under three years.

While neighbourhood plans would still need to be taken into consideration, the lack of a three-year housing supply means the council would be expected to presume in favour of sustainable development even if in conflict with such a plan.

The new target came into force as the council’s core local plan is now more than five years old. 

If this was not the case, officers said, the council’s housing land supply would judged on the old target instead and be just under five years.

Criticisms were also raised by Cllr Jonathan Vine-Hall (Ind), who is both cabinet member for strategic planning and chairman of the planning committee. 

He said:

“This new figure, which is generated by a formula, is not an objectively assessed need. It is just a formula applied across the country.

“Its aim is to achieve a national figure of 300,000 units, which is an entirely political figure not to do with any evidence base, until central government decides that is not a very good way to plan. 

“Unfortunately they are in transmission not receiving mode on that.”

He added that it took no account of actual demand for housing in the area either.

While critical of the target, Cllr Vine-Hall was not fatalistic about what it would mean for local planning decisions.

He said:

“The presumption in favour of sustainable development does clearly reference the need to protect areas and assets of particular importance.

"Those include local green space, AONBs and other designated areas. 

“A lot of appeals that have gone forward in Rother, which applicants were arguing were sustainable, have actually lost on landscape grounds.

"So I don’t think you should fear everything is lost.

“The main problem for us is it is going to take two more years to get to a point where we have a [local] plan that is sufficiently advanced to challenge that number.”