Wealden District Council Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment August 2018 How to Contact Us Planning Policy Wealden District Council Council Offices, Vicarage Lane, Hailsham, East Sussex BN27 2AX Telephone 01892 602008 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.wealden.gov.uk Office hours Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 8.30am to 5.00pm and Wednesday 9.00am to 5.00pm You may also visit the offices Monday to Friday, to view other Local Plan documents. If you, or somebody you know, would like the information con- tained in this document in large print, Braille, audio tape/CD or in another language please contact Wealden District Council on 01323 443322 or [email protected] Contents Page No. 1. Executive Summary 1 2. Important note about SHELAA 1 3. Introduction 2 4. Background 2 5. Progress to date 3 6. Methodology 3 7. Monitoring and next steps 19 Appendix 1: Sites considered too small for assessment 21 Appendix 2: Sites with planning permission 27 Appendix 3: Site visit checklist 33 Appendix 4: Sites considered unsuitable for development 37 Appendix 5: Sites considered suitable for development 305 1. Executive Summary 1.1 This document is the Wealden District Council Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) 2018. It supersedes all previous Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessments (SHLAA). 1.2 The SHELAA is an evidence base document used to support the development of planning policy documents including the Wealden Locald Plan an to help inform emerging Neighbourhood Development Plans. The aim of the SHELAA is to provide an assessment of potential housing and economic land to enable the Council to identify a sufficient supply of deliverable sites or broad locations. Potential delivery is broken down into the following time periods; 1‐5 years, 6‐10 years and 11‐15 years where possible, as required through paragraph 47 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The SHELAA is an assessment of land availability that seeks to identify a future supply of land, which is suitable, available and achievable for housing and economic development uses. The majority of these sites have been suggested to the Council by developers and land owners. 1.3 The name of the assessment changed in 2015 to reflect the assessment of economic land together with housing land, in accordance with the ‘Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment’ guidance published in 2014. The findings of the SHELAA present a snap‐shot of information held in the Council’s SHELAA database at the time the report was published. The SHELAA is a living document and will be updated on a regular basis. 1.4 This report has been prepared in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that was published in March, 2012 which was in force prior to 24th August 2018 where the revised NPPF was published. Therefore references to the NPPF within this SHELAA document relate to the version published in March 2012 unless otherwise specified. The SHELAA report will be updated to take into account the NPPF published on 24th August 2018 prior to submission of the Wealden Local Plan to the planning inspectorate for examination at the end of 2018. 2. Important Note about the SHELAA 2.1 The SHELAA only identifies opportunities for housing and/ or employment development on sites that are considered deliverable, developable and available. It does not allocate sites to be developed. The allocation of sites for future housing and/ or employment development will be identified through Local Plans or Neighbourhood Development Plans. The SHELAA has been undertaken before any decision has been taken on the strategy to be included in the Council’s emerging Local Plan. The SHELAA is therefore an aid for plan making and not a statement of Council policy. 2.2 The level and location of housing development potential indicated in the SHELAA does not therefore indicate the level or location of housing growth that will be permitted in the District. It is merely the aggregate potential arising from the individual sites as presently identified and assessed. 2.3 The identification of potential housing sites within the SHELAA does not imply that planning permission would be granted if an application were to be submitted. The SHELAA is a high level assessment. All planning applications will continue to be considered against the 1 appropriate policies within the adopted Local Plan, having regard to any other material considerations. 2.4 The inclusion of potential housing or employment sites within the SHELAA does not preclude them from being considered for other uses. 2.5 Site boundaries are based on the information available at the time of the assessment.e Th SHELAA does not limit an extension or contraction of these boundaries for the purpose of a planning application. 2.6 The SHELAA includes sites suitable to accommodate five units or more. The exclusion of sites from the SHELAA which fall below this threshold does not preclude the possibility of a planning application being submitted and later granted. Suitable sites (particularly small sites) for residential development that have not been identified in the SHELAA will continue to come forward through the usual planning processes, including neighbourhood planning. 3. Introduction 3.1 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires Local Planning Authorities to maintain an adequate supply of housing and employment sites within the area. As part of this process, Local Planning Authorities must consider where housing development would be best located and assess all potential opportunities for development locations. The assessment has assisted Wealden District Council (WDC) in the identification of potential locations for housing, either to be allocated through the emerging Wealden Local Plan or to assist Parishes in the identification of sites to be considered for their emerging Neighbourhood Development Plans. 4. Background 4.1 Paragraph 159 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires Local Planning Authorities to prepare a Strategic Housing & Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) to establish realistic assumptions about the availability, suitability and likely economic viability of land within their area. This is to enable them to maintain an adequate supply of housing land to meet their identified local housing needs. As part of this process, Local Planning Authorities must assess all potential opportunities for development to help identify which sites or locations are most suitable or deliverable for a particular use. 4.2 Paragraph 161 of the NPPF requires Local Planning Authorities to assess the existing and future supply of land available for economic development and its sufficiency and suitability to meet identified needs. 4.3 The SHELAA Planning Practice Guidance, last updated 27 March 2015, states that as a minimum a SHELAA assessment should: ‐ Identify sites and broad locations with potential for development; ‐ Assess their development potential; ‐ Assess their suitability for development and the likelihood of development coming forward (the availability and achievability). 2 4.4 This approach ensures that all land is assessed together as part of plan preparation to identify which sites or broad locations are the most suitable and deliverable for the use identified. 5. Progress to date 5.1 The Wealden Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) (March 2010) assessed the availability of land for housing development across the entire District and provided the Council with evidence to inform decisions on the strategic distribution of residential development in Wealden to 2027 to support the growth identified in the Core Strategy Local Plan which was adopted in February 2013. An addendum report was published in March 2010 which incorporated some additional sites and contained a number of factual updates, including further detailed feedback from infrastructure providers. 5.2 An Interim SHLAA statement was published in January 2012 to provide a partial update to the SHLAA published in 2010. It relates to sites where an update was considered necessary to support the choice of options for the Strategic Sites Issues and Options Consultation Paper (January 2012). 5.3 The last SHLAA to be published was in March 2014 to support the Strategic Sites Local Plan, and the scope of the report was limited to those sites located within the Strategic Development Areas identified in the Core Strategy Local Plan (2013). The report incorporated some additional sites and contained a number of factual updates, including further detailed feedback from infrastructure providers. 5.4 Previous reports can be found on the Council’s website at; http://www.wealden.gov.uk/Wealden/Residents/Planning_and_Building_Control/Planning_ Policy/Strategic_Housing_Economic_Land_Assess/PPolicy_SHELAA.aspx 5.5 The Council undertook a Call for Sites during the summer of 2014 to update evidence on land availability in Heathfield and the settlements identified in Policy WCS6 of the Core Strategy Local Plan (2013). The Council has since decided to combine work on the Delivery and Site Allocations Local Plan with the review of the Core Strategy to create a new Local Plan, the Wealden Local Plan, and therefore submitted sites have been automatically carried forward to the SHELAA. 5.6 A further Call for Sites was undertaken between December 2014 and May 2015 to support the work on the emerging Wealden Local Plan. 5.7 This report contains a review of all sites submitted through the SHLAA process and all new sites submitted as part of the SHELAA process up to 31st May 2018. This report also now contains an assessment of land available for economic development as per the requirements of Paragraph 161 of the NPPF. 6. Methodology 6.1 The Council’s approach is consistent with the overall approach set out in the Planning Practice Guidance ‘Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment’. This is summarised in Figure 1 below. 3 6.2 The Council produced a SHELAA Methodology in March 2014 and the assessment follows the approach set out in the methodologgy.