Robert Hitchins Ltd to Submit Representations to Paragraph 5.1 and Policy B2

From: Sarah Hamilton-Foyn Sent: 13 February 2020 14:59 To: Gloucester City Plan Cc: Adam Gooch Subject: RE: Gloucester City Plan - Consultation - One week to go Attachments: Ltr to City Plan Consultation 13.02.20.pdf; Final Revised Para 5.1 5YHLS Rep 12.02.2020 FINAL.pdf

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Local Plan Team,

Further to my email of 10th February 2020, please can you swap the rep from for para 5.1 5 YHLS for the one attached to this email, as additional points have been included in the representation form now submitted?

A hard copy will be in the post.

Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to give me a call.

Kind regards,

www.pegasusgroup.co.uk

Pegasus Group is the trading name of Pegasus Planning Group Ltd (07277000) registered in England and Wales. This email and any associated files, is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient you should not use the contents nor disclose them to any other person. If you have received this message in error please notify us immediately. We have updated our Privacy Statement in line with the GDPR; please click here to view it.

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From: Sarah Hamilton-Foyn Sent: 10 February 2020 17:35 To: [email protected]; Adam Gooch Subject: RE: Gloucester City Plan - Consultation - One week to go

Local Plan Team,

In response to the extended consultation on the Gloucester City Pre-Submission Plan, Pegasus Group have been instructed by Robert Hitchins Ltd to submit representations to paragraph 5.1 and Policy B2. These representations take into account the further information published during the extended consultation. Consequently, the attached representations replace the two submitted on these matters previously as part of our wider submission of representations on 16th December 2019. Apart from these two representations our previous submission remains unchanged.

A hard copy will be sent in the post.

I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this email.

If you have any queries , please do not hesitate to give me a call.

Kind regards,

www.pegasusgroup.co.uk

Please consider the environment before printing this email message.

From: Adam Gooch Sent: 07 February 2020 17:57 To: Sarah Hamilton-Foyn Subject: Gloucester City Plan - Consultation - One week to go Importance: High

Dear Sarah, I’m writing to remind you know that the Gloucester City Plan (Pre-Submission) consultation closes one week today. Responses must be received by 5pm on Friday 14th February 2020.

The GCP sits underneath the adopted Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury Joint Core Strategy (JCS) , covering a period up to 2031. It delivers the JCS locally and addresses any local issue and opportunities. Altogether there are 22 site allocations for uses including residential, employment and community facilities. There are also a range of policies intended to ensure that development contributes positivity to the local area and protects the important built and natural environment. It covers the Gloucester City Council administrative area only.

Full details of the consultation, including response forms, are available at https://gloucester.inconsult.uk/consult.ti/cityplan.presub/consultationHome.

If I can help any further, please feel free to get in touch.

Kind regards,

Adam

Adam Gooch Planning Policy Team Leader

Place Gloucester City Council Shire Hall Westgate Street www.gloucester.gov.uk Gloucester, GL1 2TG Pegasus Group

SHF/CIR.P17-0122 Send by email: [email protected]

13th February 2020

City Plan Consultation Planning Policy Team Gloucester City Council PO Box 3252 GL1Gloucester 9FW

Dear Sir/Madam Gloucester City Plan fReaulation 19): Extended Pre-submission public consultation

Further to my letter and submission of 10th February 2020 on behalf of Robert hlitchins Limited, we have amended the representation form for para 5.1, 5 YHLS.

Please can you use the enclosed form to replace the one submitted earlier this week for

(i) Para 5.1, 5 Year Housing Land Supply

A copy of this form is also being sent by email. Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours faithfully

-<£>AjiaO— 4-<-<^<-^'<-^(-»-- 'f^-y^-

Sarah Hamilton-Foyn Senior Director

ec Phil Hardwick - Robert Hitchins Ltd

Enc. Representation Form para 5.1 5 YHLS dated 12th February 2020

Pegasus House, Querns Business Centre, Whitworth Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 1 RT T 01285 641717 F 01285 642348 www.pegasuspg.co.uk

Birmingham I Bracknell I Bristol I Cambridge | Cirencester I East Midlands | Leeds I Manchestepage | 1 Planning I Environmental I Urban Design I Landscape Design I Renewables I Retail I Graphic Design I Consultation I Sustainability

Pegasus Group is a trading name of Pegasus Planning Group Limited 107277000] registered in England and Wales Registered Office; Pegasus House, Querns Business Centre, Whitworth Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 1 RT

GLOUCESTER CITY PLAN PRE-SUBMISSION (REGULATION 19) RESPONSE FORM

Please return to Gloucester City Council no later than 5pm on Friday 14th February 2020.

The Gloucester City Plan (GCP) is a plan for the area that will allocate sites for housing and employment development as well as provide planning policies to guide future development in the City. It provides a plan covering the period from 2011-2031. The Pre-Submission GCP is the next step in process of creating the final version of plan. The Gloucester City Plan (GCP), together with the Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury Joint Core Strategy (JCS), the Gloucestershire Minerals and Waste Local Plans and any Neighbourhood Plans will, when adopted, comprise the statutory Development Plan for Gloucester up to 2031.

The ‘Pre-Submission’ GCP is the final stage of consultation before the plan is submitted to the Secretary of Statement for Communities and Local Government for its independent examination. Once the Pre-Submission consultation has ended, the responses and other required documentation will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. The timing of this will depend on the number of responses received to the consultation but it is expected this will happen before the end of 2019. Following submission, an appointed Planning Inspector will begin the examination of the plan and consider whether it is sound and legally compliant.

Copies of all comments received will be submitted in full to the Secretary of State and considered as part of the examination by the Planning Inspector. Please note that copies of all comments will be made available for the public to view (including your name, but will not include any personal contact details or signatures), and therefore cannot be treated as confidential. Data will be processed and held in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 and Data Protection Act 2018. For further information on how we use your data please see the privacy notice on the Council’s website.

We are seeking your views on the policies and the proposals in the Pre-Submission GCP and would encourage you to respond by using the online consultation system, available from the City Council website. However, you may also send completed forms to us via email and post:

• Email: [email protected] • Post: City Plan Consultation, Planning Policy Team, Gloucester City Council, PO Box 3252, Gloucester, GL1 9FW.

The consultation commenced on 7th November 2019. Originally closing on 20th December 2020, it has been extended until 5pm on Friday 14th February 2020. Responses must be received no later than 5pm this day. Any received after this time will not have been ‘duly made’ and will not be accepted.

This form has two parts – Part A – Personal Details: need only be completed once. Part B – Your representation(s). Please fill in a separate sheet for each representation you wish to make.

Part A

1. Personal 2. Agent’s Details (if Details* applicable) *If an agent is appointed, please complete only the Title, Name and Organisation (if applicable) boxes below but complete the full contact details of the agent in 2.

Title Mrs

First Name Sarah

Last Name Hamilton-Foyn

Job Title Senior Director (where relevant) Organisation Robert Hitchins Ltd Pegasus Group (where relevant) Address Line 1 Pegasus House

Line 2 Querns Business Centre

Line 3 Whitworth Road

Line 4 Cirencester

Post Code GL7 1RE

Telephone

Number

E-mail Address (where relevant)

Part B – Please use a separate sheet for each representation

Name or Organisation:

3. To which part of the Local Plan does this representation relate?

Paragraph 5.1 Policy Policies Map

4. Do you consider the Local Plan is :

4.(1) Legally compliant Yes √ No

4.(2) Sound Yes No √

4 (3) Complies with the Duty to co-operate Yes √ No

Please tick as appropriate

5. Please give details of why you consider the Local Plan is not legally compliant or is unsound or fails to comply with the duty to co-operate. Please be as precise as possible. If you wish to support the legal compliance or soundness of the Local Plan or its compliance with the duty to co-operate, please also use this box to set out your comments.

The representation is made in light of the new evidence that has resulted in the extension to the consultation on the Gloucester City Plan. As such this representation supersedes the previous representation made on paragraph 5.1.

We are aware that recently the JCS Authorities are seeking education contributions which are up to 7 times greater than the total allowance made of £2,500 in the September 2019 modelling. When other S.106 items are added, POS, highways etc, the total amounts being sought will be higher still. This is not a marginal increase that can be swept under the carpet, this is not 7% it is 700% and more. It will have massively significant effects on viability and housing delivery across the JCS area, where housing land supply shortfalls are already substantial.

These S.106 contributions are being sought in addition to CIL following the revision to reg 123 last year notwithstanding that at the CIL EIP, it was stated that S.106 would be significantly reduced and CIL would fund education.

The additional requirements being sought by the County Council when applied by the City Council will inevitably lead to an increase in the time taken on planning applications; the time taken to run viability exercises, appeals and legal challenges; all of which will result in significant delays to housing delivery thus compromising the Plans deliverability and leading inevitably to significant reductions in housing

predominantly, affordable housing delivery – so the impact will be where it is likely to hurt and be felt most.

It would be extremely unwise for the emerging plan to go to examination in these circumstances and a waste of time and resources for all participants when a brief review of site viability now, using the current level of contributions being sought would reveal that many if not all of the sites proposed to be allocated are unviable; the plan is clearly unsound. An urgent review of plan viability is needed.

These points were made in our representations submitted on 16th December (see the response prepared by Pioneer on behalf of Robert Hitchins Ltd, Attachment A, paragraphs 9.1 to 9.8.)

Paragraph 5.1 of the GCP states that the JCS already includes a monitoring framework directly relevant to the GCP (see Section 7 and Policy REV1 of the adopted JCS Dec 2017).

Table A: ‘Housing’ of the GCP (p.131) provides further monitoring indicators for the GCP in relation to housing, however neither the JCS nor the GCP provide a monitoring indicator requiring the reporting of net housing delivery per annum or that the authority should demonstrate a five year deliverable supply of housing as required by Paragraph 73 of the NPPF;

“Local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies, or against their local housing need where the strategic policies are more than five years old.”

The Housing Background Paper (Sept 2019) (HBP) states at paragraph 1.18 that the City has a 5.4-year housing land supply using the Liverpool method. This is based on the evidence at Appendix 9 of the City’s Housing Monitoring report (June 2019).

Appendix 1 of the ‘Gloucester City Housing Delivery and Trajectory’ provides further evidence on housing supply and Appendix 2 provides a trajectory of the draft City Plan site allocations. Consideration of Appendices 1 and 2 demonstrates that the City does not have a five-year housing land supply for the following reasons;

• ‘Extant permissions on sites not under construction’ will not all deliver as assumed in the City’s Housing Monitoring report for 2019 • Insufficient evidence has been provided to substantiate the delivery rates proposed for the City Plan Sites Trajectory • Assumed delivery from the JCS Strategic Allocations in Tewkesbury Borough is over optimistic and un-evidenced • Over-estimated delivery rates within five-year supply • The City only apply a 5% buffer in their calculation of five year supply at Appendix 9 of June 2019 Housing Monitoring report – PPG requires a 10% buffer to be applied if an authority is wishing to fix their five-year housing land supply through the plan making process – See Housing Supply and Delivery Section of PPG Paragraph: 010 Reference ID: 68-010-20190722 Revised 22nd July 2019). It is not clear from this Regulation 19 consultation if the City is seeking to confirm their five-year supply from adoption?

These matters are considered in turn below.

1. The NPPF 2019 Glossary definition of ‘Deliverable’ states at sub section b) that; “where a site has outline planning permission for major development, has been allocated in a development plan, has a grant of permission in principle, or is identified on a brownfield register, it should only be considered deliverable where there is clear evidence that housing completions will begin on site within five years”. (emphasis added)

Planning Practice Guidance states the ‘clear evidence’ required for demonstrating a five-year housing land supply at Paragraph: 007 Reference ID: 68-007-20190722 (revised 22nd July 2019)1.

The GCP evidence base does not provide the PPG sources of ‘clear evidence’ in many instances, the major instances are drawn out in turn.

2. ‘Extant Permissions on sites not under construction’. The main source of evidence for delivery of these sites is the City’s Housing Monitoring Report (June 2019). There are two large outline permissions and one full planning permission that have yet to commence that are of particular concern with regard to their deliverability;

(a) 12/00725/OUT Old Hempsted Fuel Depot – 85 dwellings. This outline permission with all matters reserved except access was granted on 28th June 2017 subject to a S.106. A condition of the permission required the application for approval of reserved matters to be made within 18 months from the date of permission. No such applications were made and the permission expired on 27th December 2018, 85 dwellings are therefore not deliverable from this source of supply. (b) 13/01032/OUT Land East of Hempsted Lane – 50 dwellings. This outline permission with all matters reserved except access was granted on 18th December 2018. As yet no reserved matters have been submitted, there is therefore no evidence to support the deliverability of 50 dwellings from the site as part of the five-year housing land supply in accordance with the PPG. (c) 17/00659/FUL Former Gloucester Prison, Barrack Square – 202 dwellings. As yet there have been no applications submitted to discharge the conditions of the planning permission granted on 6th December 2018. 19/00135/FUL was granted on 29th April 2019 for the retrospective Change of Use of the Prison to Leisure Use with part of the site used for inside combat known as ‘Airsoft’. The prison is also used for Prison Tours and monthly paranormal events. Press Reports from December 2019 indicate that the owners of the site, ‘City and Country’ are looking to sell part of the site while retaining parts of the historic prison structure. All the above raises considerable doubt over the ability of 202 dwellings from the site to contribute to the City’s five-year housing land supply.

In conclusion there is doubt over at least 337 dwellings contributing to five-year supply from ‘Extant Permissions on sites not under construction’.

Moreover, Appendix 1 to the Housing Background Paper (Sept 2019) states that 243 dwellings will come forward from this capacity source in the monitoring year April 2019-March 2020 with a further 406 dwellings in 2020- 2021 and 424 dwellings in 2021-2022. Given the sites had not commenced

1 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/housing-supply-and-delivery#demonstrating-a-5-year-housing- land-supply

delivery in April 2019 this delivery rate is considered unrealistic based on industry reports such as the Lichfields ‘Start to Finish Report’ (Nov 2016).

3. The City Plan site allocation trajectory is provided at Appendix 2 of the Housing Background Paper, however no evidence is provided to substantiate the delivery rates proposed. This is particularly important as Section 6 of the GCP considers the City Plan Site Allocation Policies SA01-SA22 to be Strategic Policies of the Plan, yet they are not supported by any evidence base with regard to their deliverability. The following points are raised;

(a) SA01 – No PPG compliant evidence provided on deliverability of 10 dwellings. (b) SA02 – Land at Barnwood Manor –The application currently before the authority (P19/00672/FUL) is for 22 dwellings net, four dwellings less than shown at Appendix 2 and 8 dwellings less than identified at Table 4.7 of the Reg 19 GCP. Doubt is raised over the ability of the site to deliver 26 dwellings. The site is as yet unconsented. (c) SA03 – 67-69 London Road – Development of site is constrained by existing trees and Conservation Area location. No planning application submitted and no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 30 dwellings. (d) SA04 – Table 4.7 of GCP states provision of 20 dwellings but no dwellings shown at Appendix 2 of HBP. (e) SA05 – Great Western Road – No planning application submitted, site is subject to ground contamination owing to past railway related use; noise constraints from the railway and is located within a zone with air quality issues. No PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 200 dwellings. (f) SA08 –Kings Quarter - No planning application submitted and no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 156 dwellings. (g) SA09 – Quayside House – brownfield regeneration site with archaeological significance and flood risk constraints - no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 25 dwellings as part of five-year housing land supply. (h) SA10 – Fleece Hotel – complex site with multiple heritage constraints - no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 25 dwellings. (i) SA11 – Land at St. Oswalds – brownfield site subject to contamination and wholly located within Flood Zone 2. No PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 300 dwellings. Part of site may be required for Place making purposes given large amount of housing already delivered at St. Oswalds. (j) SA12 - Rea Lane – Application submitted for 33 dwellings (19/00068/FUL) as yet undetermined. (k) SA13 – Former Colwell Centre - No planning application submitted and no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 20 dwellings. (l) SA14 – Land adj. Blackbridge - No planning application submitted and no PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 30 dwellings. (m) SA15 – Sneedhams Green Rd – A green field site, however no planning application or PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 30 dwellings. (n) SA16 – Eastgate Street - No planning application submitted or PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 15 dwellings. (o) SA18 – Jordans Brook House – Site currently in active use by the County Council and the NHS who run services for children from the site. No planning application submitted or PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 20 dwellings.

(p) SA19- Myers Road – site adjacent to former gas holder and adjacent to other dust and noise generating uses currently operating at Horton Road sidings. No planning application submitted or PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 10 dwellings. (q) SA21 – Part of West Quay – site subject to flood risk and within Conservation Area and currently occupied by businesses, including Gloucester Brewery. No planning application submitted or PPG compliant evidence on deliverability of 20 dwellings.

In total there is no PPG compliant evidence to demonstrate the deliverability of 891 of the 972 dwellings proposed to be delivered through site allocations, 781 of which are proposed to comprise part of the City’s five-year housing land supply.

Furthermore, only 100 dwellings of the 837 dwellings City Plan capacity in the five- year supply are from green field sites, none of the 737 dwellings from brownfield sites yet have planning permission.

Brownfield sites can be costly to remediate, and in an historic City such as Gloucester are particularly subject to constraints such as archaeology and heritage as well as flood risk, biodiversity, contamination. They can also be subject to abnormal costs such as demolition, all these matters affect the viability of development and the associated deliverability of sites. Other policy considerations such as proximity to noise sources; matters relating to air pollution and the need to provide affordable housing affect the development value of brownfield sites.

There is therefore considerable uncertainty over the deliverability of some of the sites identified in the City Plan Capacity and without evidence provided to the contrary by the Council, this capacity should be discounted from the deliverable five-year supply – this is some 781 dwellings.

Removing 337+781 dwellings from the deliverable supply reduces the City’s five- year housing land supply to 3,849 dwellings and results in only 85% of the 4,534 dwelling housing requirement being provided.

4. Assumed delivery from JCS Strategic Allocations This is a further area where PPG evidence on deliverability is lacking from the GCP evidence base. Delivery of 75 dwellings by the end of March 2020 from the North Brockworth Strategic Allocation is most unlikely with ground works only commencing on site in 2019 for the provision of initial infrastructure such as drainage and access into the first phase of the development.

While Innsworth, Twigworth and Winneycroft Strategic Allocations now have reserved matters permissions for the commencement of parcels on site the delivery of these sites at the rate projected at Appendix 1 of the Housing Background Paper (Sept 2019) is unrealistic when compared to the rates of delivery of large sites in Industry reports such as Lichfields ‘Start to Finish’ report (Nov 2016)2 which states at p.14;

“ ….it is striking that annual average delivery on sites of up to 1,499 units barely exceeds 100 units per annum”.

2 https://lichfields.uk/media/1728/start-to-finish.pdf

The Strategic Allocations are greenfield sites which require the provision of essential infrastructure prior to commencement of delivery of housing, this is in the infancy of provision across the area and will impact on the rate of delivery of new homes which is unlikely to match that in Appendix 1 of the Housing Background Paper.

Conclusions Taking all these points together it is clear that despite the trajectory provided at Appendix 1 of the Housing Background Paper (Sept 2019) the City cannot evidence a five-year supply housing land supply.

The accelerated annual rate of delivery of homes over five years from plan adoption is also considered to be unrealistic, especially the 2021-2022 proposed peak of 1,208 dwellings (400 dwellings from strategic allocations and 800 from other sources within the City). The City’s average net delivery over the past five years has been just 499 dwellings, this is in a context where new homes have not been prevented from coming forward and where draft City Plan sites have been actively consented.

Given these conclusions the need to allocate additional deliverable sites in the GCP – especially those identified in the SALA evidence as ‘deliverable’ is considered necessary, this would include our client’s site at Land north of Rudloe Drive plus consideration of the allocation of Mill Place as a new regeneration area to help meet housing need at the end of the plan period.

Pegasus reserve the right to comment on any future evidence submitted by the authority to the Inspector concerning the deliverability of the City Plan sites and five -year housing land supply matters in future Hearing Statements, or orally at the Local Plan Examination.

Should the Inspector consider the GCP lacking in five-year housing land supply then main modifications can be recommended to the plan to ensure that a five-year supply can be demonstrated from the point of adoption in accordance with the PPG (Paragraph: 008 Reference ID: 68-008-20190722 as revised 22nd July 2019).

(Continue on a separate sheet /expand box if necessary)

Inclusion of our client’s site at Land north of Rudloe Drive as a housing allocation plus consideration of the allocation of Mill Place as a new regeneration area to help meet housing need at the end of the plan period.

(Continue on a separate sheet /expand box if necessary)

Please note: In your representation you should provide succinctly all the evidence and supporting information necessary to support your representation and your suggested modification(s). You should not assume that you will have a further opportunity to make submissions. After this stage, further submissions may only be made if invited by the Inspector, based on the matters and issues he or she identifies for examination.

7. If your representation is seeking a modification to the plan, do you consider it necessary to participate in examination hearing session(s)?

No, I do not wish to Yes, I wish to participate in √ participate in hearing session(s) hearing session(s)

Please note that while this will provide an initial indication of your wish to participate in hearing session(s), you may be asked at a later point to confirm your request to participate.

8. If you wish to participate in the hearing session(s), please outline why you consider this to be necessary:

To provide updates to the Inspector with regard to the City’s five-year housing land supply at the point of submission of Hearing Statements.

Please note the Inspector will determine the most appropriate procedure to adopt to hear those who have indicated that they wish to participate in hearing session(s). You may be asked to confirm your wish to participate when the Inspector has identified the matters and issues for examination.

9. Signature: S. HAMILTON-FOYN Date: 12.02.2020