CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL HOUSING SUPPLY AND DELIVERY TOPIC PAPER August 2016 (Base date 31 March 2016) Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 3 2. CONTEXT – EVOLUTION OF LOCAL PLAN STRATEGY .................................. 5 3. PROPOSED CHANGES TO APPENDIX A OF THE LOCAL PLAN STRATEGY SUBMISSION VERSION ..................................................................................... 8 4. HOUSING TRAJECTORY ................................................................................. 12 5. FORECASTING – BUILD RATE AND LEAD IN METHODOLOGY ................... 25 6. SITE ALLOCATIONS ......................................................................................... 30 7. FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS POST PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE LPS PUBLIC CONSULTATION (MARCH-APRIL 2016)………………………………..32 8. NEXT STEPS & CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................... 32 9. APPENDICES.................................................................................................... 43 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Cheshire East Council (CEC) initially produced a Housing Supply and Delivery Topic Paper (during February 2016) to support the upcoming period of Public Consultation on the Proposed Changes Version of the LPS which closed on 19 April 2016. This document had a base date of 30 September 2015 and was the most currently available data at that time. This update, with a base date of 31 March 2016 seeks to provide the full year position in terms of completions and commitments, as well as those implications on the trajectory and 5 year supply positions. It also seeks to provide further clarification on elements which were responded to as part of the period of Public Consultation and to provide the Inspector to the EiP with further evidence to be able to make an informed view on those methodologies that have been adopted by CEC, specifically in relation to housing considerations. 1.2 The Housing Supply and Delivery Topic Paper sets out how the Local Plan Strategy will: (i) Meet the overall requirement for housing provision (36,000 net additional homes) over the plan period; and (ii) Provide a five year supply of deliverable housing sites against the plan’s housing requirement with an appropriate additional buffer, and ensuring that historic under-delivery since 2010, the start of the plan period, is addressed as quickly as practicably possible. 1.3 The Local Plan is being brought forward in two parts: (i) the Local Plan Strategy (LPS); and (ii) the Site Allocations and Development Policies Development Plan Document (SADPD). Both will have a role to play in enabling sufficient opportunities to come forward in order for the plan’s overall housing requirement to be met in full over the plan period. 1.4 The LPS allocates strategic sites and identifies strategic locations. Where required, sites below a strategic scale (i.e. less than 150 homes) will be allocated through the SADPD. The strategic locations of Central Crewe (Policy SL1), Central Macclesfield (Policy SL4) and Brooks Lane, Middlewich (CS54, former SL9) identified in the LPS are exceptions to this approach. The housing figure against each of these strategic locations will be met thorough the development of multiple sites of varying size within the respective urban areas, including many schemes below 150 dwellings. 1.5 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires local planning authorities at ¶47 to: “Identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years' worth of housing against their housing requirements with an additional buffer of 5% (moved forward from later in the plan period) to ensure choice and competition in the market for land. Where there has been a record of persistent under delivery of housing, local planning authorities should increase the buffer to 20% (moved forward from later in the plan period) to provide a realistic prospect of achieving the planned supply and to ensure choice and competition in the market for land.” 1.6 Further guidance is provided within the online Planning Practice Guidance (PPG), which was published in March 2014. The PPG provides clarification as to the meaning of Footnote 11 of the NPPF, stating that "planning permission is not a prerequisite for a site being deliverable in terms of the five-year supply". However, robust up-to-date evidence to support deliverability must be provided by the local planning authority in situations where permission does not yet exist. 1.7 Paragraph 031 of the PPG (Reference ID: 3-031-20140306) further states that deliverable sites for housing could include those that are allocated for housing in the development plan and sites with planning permission (outline or full that have not been implemented) unless there is clear evidence that schemes will not be implemented within five years. 1.8 This Topic Paper explains the evolution of the LPS and addresses the additional evidence that has been published by the Council, most notably, the Cheshire East Housing Development Study (June 2015) prepared by ORS. It also addresses the key matters that are relevant to demonstrating that the Cheshire East Local Plan (i.e., the LPS and SADPD) will provide for sufficient housing over the next five years and over the full plan period. 4 2. CONTEXT – EVOLUTION OF LOCAL PLAN STRATEGY 2.1 Housing land supply and subsequent delivery in Cheshire East has already been a well documented subject. Cheshire East is a highly sought after Housing Market Area (HMA), both for prospective residents and for developers. 2.2 House prices are a market signal in terms of determining the OAN, the Housing Development Study (HDS) as produced by ORS1 has noted that lower quartile prices in CEC are lower than the national average and lower than Wiltshire and North Somerset (our comparator areas), similar to Cheshire West and Chester and higher than East Riding of Yorkshire [¶ 5.35-5.53 of PS E033]. 2.3 The average house price in Cheshire East has always exceeded the regional average, the gap between which is set to increase further. These added demands give rise to a number of pressures, not least of all to Cheshire East in its role as a Local Planning Authority. 2.4 The North West Regional Strategy (RS) 2008 housing requirement for the three predecessor boroughs (Congleton Borough, Crewe and Nantwich Borough and Macclesfield Borough), the areas of which now comprise Cheshire East, totalled 20,700 for the RS plan period of 2003-2021. The annualised average figure of 1,150 dwellings per annum (dpa) was not a requirement on a year-by-year basis, hence the figure of 1,150 dpa did not have to be met in each or any given year, nor was there a requirement to exceed the figure of 20,700. 2.5 The submission version of the LPS, published in March 2014 and its accompanying evidence base provided an increase on the former RS annual housing target to 1,180 dpa, which equated to an overall requirement for 27,000 net additional dwellings over the 20-year plan period (2010-30). 2.6 This position has changed during the Plan’s Examination in Public. In response to the concerns raised by the Inspector in his Interim Views, dated 6 November 2014, regarding, amongst other things, the planned level of economic and housing growth the Council commissioned Opinion Research 1 Examination Library document reference [PS E033] – June 2015 5 Services (ORS) to undertake a Housing Development Study, to reconsider the full objectively assessed need for housing (FOAN) in the Borough. 2.7 This Study was completed in June 2015 and is part of an updated suite of evidence that the Council is now relying on to promote amendments to the Local Plan Strategy. ORS found that the headline Objectively Assessed Need for Housing in Cheshire East is 36,000 dwellings over the 20-year period 2010-30, equivalent to an average of 1,800 dwellings per year. 2.8 Consistent with the PPG, this figure includes an allowance for older person’s accommodation (primarily Class C2 uses) which accounts for 2,180 units over the Plan period and considers all of evidence in relation to demographic trends and economic development needs. Cheshire East also produced a housing requirement technical annex [PS E031a.4] which was then supplemented by the Matter Statement on these elements. 2.9 The Council has assessed whether the Local Plan housing requirement should be higher or lower than the FOAN. Based on the findings of this work, the Council proposes that the Local Plan housing requirement should be the same as the FOAN. The Matter Statement (from October 2015 - doc ref. RM1.001a) sought to explore some of these pertinent issues to inform the discussions at those hearings held during October 2015. 2.10 In addition, an appropriate and justified spatial distribution of the uplifted housing requirement for Cheshire East has been established through the Spatial Distribution Update Report (July 2015) prepared by AECOM on behalf of the Council. The uplifted housing requirement has had the effect of increasing the required level of housing development across all settlements/areas. This is presented in the table overleaf. In response to the Inspector’s Interim Views, this redistributes additional growth to the northern towns which are set within the Green Belt, to better address their housing needs. The Spatial Distribution of Development (SDUR) was generally supported by the Inspector within his Further Interim Views [RE A021, ¶65- 71]. 6 Table 2.1: