West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland Five Year Housing
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West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland Five-year housing land supply 2015/16 PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2016 West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland 5 Year Housing Land Supply 2015/16 Contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 2 2 Housing Supply Requirement .............................................................................................. 3 2.1 Local Plan Housing Target ................................................................................................ 3 2.2 Performance against Target ............................................................................................. 3 2.3 Supply Buffer .................................................................................................................... 4 2.4 Factoring in the Shortfall and Buffer ................................................................................ 5 2.5 The Five-year requirement position – April 2016 ............................................................ 5 2.6 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 6 3 Supply Calculations .............................................................................................................. 7 3.2 Recommendations from the Inspector’s Report .............................................................. 7 3.3 Position at April 2016 ....................................................................................................... 8 4 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................10 4.2 Five-year requirement against Supply ...........................................................................10 Appendix A: Extant Permissions at 1 April 2016 ............................................................................12 Appendix B: Local Plan allocations .................................................................................................22 West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland 5 Year Housing Land Supply 2015/16 1 Introduction 1.1.1 The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires local planning authorities to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years worth of housing against their housing requirements with a minimum additional buffer of 5% to ensure choice and competition in the market for land1. 1.1.2 To be considered ‘deliverable’ these sites should be available now, offer a suitable location for development now and be achievable with a realistic prospect that housing will be delivered on the site within five years and in particular that development of the site is viable. 1.1.3 Where the delivery of sites has been below the housing target, the shortfall will need to be made up within the five year supply period. Where there has been a record of persistent under delivery against the target, the buffer should be increased to 20% to provide a realistic prospect of achieving the planned supply and to ensure choice and competition in the market for land. 1.1.4 If the local planning authority is unable to demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable sites, the policies for the delivery of housing are considered ‘out of date’ and the tests in paragraph 14 of the NPPF need to be applied, alongside relevant policies in the development plan. 1.1.5 This document establishes the five-year supply requirement for the West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland Local Plan area having regard to the past rates of delivery since the start of the Local Plan period (i.e. since 2011). It then looks at the supply of housing against this requirement on the basis of the most up-to-date information, the completions and commitments data as at April 2016. 1.1.6 The calculation of supply of housing sites has been based on the recommendations made by the local plan inspector in his report dated 14th August 2015. The inspector highlighted which sources of supply he considered appropriate to include in the supply and the level of discount that should be applied to these sources. 1.1.7 In his report, the inspector concluded that the councils could demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable sites based on the available information at that time (i.e. the 2014 completions and commitments data). A summary of this approach is also included in this report. 1 National Planning Policy Framework paragraph 47, DCLG, March 2012 2 | P AGE S EPTE M B E R 2 0 1 6 West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland 5 Year Housing Land Supply 2015/16 2 Housing Supply Requirement 2.1 LOCAL PLAN HOUSING TARGET 2.1.1 The West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland Joint Local Plan was adopted following the recommendation of the inspector in his report on the examination of the plan. It was adopted by Weymouth and Portland Borough Council on 15th October 2015 and by West Dorset District Council on 22nd October 2015. The Local Plan covers the 20 year period from 2011 to 2031. 2.1.2 In his report, the local plan inspector considered the available evidence and concluded that 15,500 dwellings “is a reasonable estimate of the amount of housing required during the plan period”. This strategic housing requirement figure applies across the Housing Market Area (the Plan area) and covers the period from 2011 to 2031. It forms the basis for the calculation of the five-year supply target for the plan area and equates to an annualised requirement of 775 dwellings per annum or 3,875 over the five-year period. 2.2 PERFORMANCE AGAINST TARGET 2.2.1 The councils monitor the supply of housing on an annual basis. The completions since the start of the plan period are set out in Figure 2.1. Figure 2.1: Annual NET Housing completions since 2011 YEAR WEYMOUTH & WEST DORSET TOTAL PORTLAND COMPLETIONS 2011/12 169 377 546 2012/13 205 364 569 2013/14 112 258 370 2014/15 148 251 399 2015/16 201 465 666 Total 835 1715 2550 2.2.2 The annual housing target of 775 dwellings per annum would equate to a delivery of 3,875 dwellings over the five year period. It is clear therefore that the delivery of housing has fallen behind the target rate in the Local Plan. 3 | P AGE S EPTE M B E R 2 0 1 6 West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland 5 Year Housing Land Supply 2015/16 2.2.3 The cumulative shortfall in supply is set out in Figure 2.2 where it can be seen that an additional 1,325 dwellings should have been delivered over the five-year period 2011/12 to 2015/16. Figure 2.2: Cumulative completions against target YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL CUMULATIVE CUMULATIVE COMPLETIONS TARGET SHORTFALL/(SURPLUS)2 2011/12 546 775 229 2012/13 1,115 1,550 435 2013/14 1,485 2,325 840 2014/15 1,884 3,100 1,216 2015/16 2,550 3,875 1,325 2.2.4 The presumption generally is that any shortfall in the supply of housing should be made up within the five-year period in line with the ‘Sedgefield’ approach3. However the ‘Liverpool’ method has also been accepted in certain circumstances. The ‘Sedgefield’ approach has been used for the calculation of the councils’ five-year supply in this report, in line with the inspector’s comments. 2.3 SUPPLY BUFFER 2.3.1 In addition to the need to provide for five years worth of housing land and to make up any shortfall within the five-year period, there is a requirement to apply a buffer to this supply. National policy states that the land supply requirement should include “an additional buffer of 5% to ensure choice and competition in the market for land”. 2.3.2 Although the 5% buffer is the default position in national policy, where there has been a record of persistent under delivery, a buffer of 20% should be applied. It is reasonable to assume that persistent under delivery would be where in three out of the last five years delivery has been significantly below the target rate set in the Local Plan. 2 Any cumulative surplus in dwelling completions are shown in brackets ( ) 3 The Sedgefield approach involves adding any shortfall of housing from previous years to the five-year supply, whereas the Liverpool method spreads the shortfall over the remainder of the plan period 4 | P AGE S EPTE M B E R 2 0 1 6 West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland 5 Year Housing Land Supply 2015/16 2.3.3 On the basis of past performance and recent appeal decisions, the councils accept that a 20% buffer should be applied to housing land supply calculations for the joint Local Plan area. This position was confirmed by the inspector in his report on the local plan examination. 2.4 FACTORING IN THE SHORTFALL AND BUFFER 2.4.1 The calculation of the overall housing land supply requirement needs to take into account the overall plan target, any shortfall in provision from the beginning of the local plan period and the appropriate buffer based on past delivery rates. 2.4.2 Recent appeal decisions indicate that the buffer should apply to both the overall land supply requirement as well as any shortfall. This position was confirmed by the inspector in his report on the local plan examination. 2.5 THE FIVE-YEAR REQUIREMENT POSITION – APRIL 2016 2.5.1 Applying the above assumptions and using the completions data to 1st April 2016, enables the calculation of the five-year requirement for the period 2016 to 2021. Figure 2.3: Five Year Housing Requirement 2016-2021 COMPONENT CALCULATION HMA ANNUAL HOUSING REQUIREMENT 775 775 5 YEAR PERIOD (2016 TO 2021) 775 x 5 3,875 2015 TO 2020 HOUSING SHORTFALL SINCE 2011 3,875 + 1,325 5,200 BUFFER 5,200 x 1.2 6,240 (20% FOR PERSISTENT UNDER DELIVERY) 5 YEAR