Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council Annual Monitoring Report 2013/14

0 Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council Annual Monitoring Report 2013/14 Covering 1 April 2013 – 31 March 2014 Published February 2015 Colin Haigh Head of Planning Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council Council Offices The Campus Welwyn Garden City Hertfordshire AL8 6AE Tel: 01707 357532 Email: [email protected] If you would like to receive this information in a different language or format please call 01707 357000 or email [email protected] 1 Contents Overall summary 2 Introduction to the AMR 4 Chapter 1: The borough and its people 5 Chapter 2: Preparation of the new Local Plan 10 Chapter 3: The Duty to Cooperate 12 Chapter 4: Community Engagement 14 Chapter 5: Monitoring of current planning policies 16 Chapter 6: Retail, Services and Facilities 19 Chapter 7: Housing 26 Chapter 8: The Economy 38 Chapter 9: The Environment and Sustainability 45 Chapter 10: Infrastructure 50 Chapter 11: SPD Site Monitoring 52 Conclusions 54 Appendix 1: 2013/14 AMR and previous AMR indicator comparison table 55 Appendix 2: Housing trajectory summary table 57 Except where shown throughout the AMR, the source of the data presented is Hertfordshire County Council via their CDP SMART development monitoring system. The River Mimram at Singlers Marsh in Welwyn, recently restored using funding from the Council and DEFRA 1 Overall summary This is the tenth Annual Monitoring Report (AMR) produced by Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, reporting on the development progress in the borough between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014. The key headlines from each chapter of this year’s AMR are: The borough and its people The borough’s population is now estimated to be just over 114,000 The new ONS population projections released during the year are much lower than those released last year – the population by 2031 (the end date of the period of the new Local Plan, see below) is now projected to be 135,400 The number of recorded crimes in the borough has fallen to 45.5 per 1,000 residents The borough’s overall health profile continues to be well above the English average, with life expectancy now at 80.1 years for men and 83.6 years for women. Preparation of the new Local Plan Early in 2014 the Council opted to prepare a single Local Plan for the borough, rather than a group of policy documents contained in a Local Development Framework The Local Plan Consultation Document has since been published to seek the public’s views on potential development sites, other allocations, and broad outlines of development management policies. Feedback from this will be used to produce a final Local Plan for public examination by an in inspector – this should lead to the plan’s adoption in late 2016. The Duty to Cooperate The Council continues to cooperate with the Hertfordshire local authorities, other public and advisory bodies and the Local Enterprise Partnership in planning for the borough’s future During the year this has involved joint evidence work, and regular and ad-hoc meetings. Community Engagement One consultation event was held during the year, on the Draft Welwyn Garden City Town Centre North Supplementary Planning Document. Over 100 responses were received, and will be incorporated into the final document, expected to be adopted early in 2015. Monitoring of current planning policies Although the borough’s existing District Plan is now 9 years old, the Council’s success rate where its decisions are appealed has improved to 64% of appeals being dismissed The new national permitted development right allowing larger home extensions appears to have had little impact on residents, with 1 objection from the 49 notified to the Council The Council has also been notified of proposals to change 10,410m2 of offices to a residential use under another new permitted development right introduced during the year. The impact of this is not yet known but could be much more significant. Retail, Services and Facilities There was a very small net loss of retail floorspace during the year, but relatively large 328m2 and 924m2 net increases in leisure and community facility floorspace respectively The shop vacancy rate in Welwyn Garden City Town Centre remains very low at 4%, and the town centre’s footfall has increased on both of the previous years 2 Whilst the vacancy rate in Hatfield has risen to 11% and footfall has fallen slightly, this is expected to improve once the initial phases of town centre redevelopment are completed. Housing During the year 236 (net) new dwellings have been completed, including student housing. This is a large increase on 2012/13, an encouraging sign of recovery in the housing market In addition, 59 new assisted living older persons' flats (Use Class C2) have been completed. These meet the needs of the borough’s older population themselves, but will also free-up an equivalent number of ‘conventional’ dwellings Although completions remain below the Council’s target of 378 homes per annum; a number of new sites have been identified through the Council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, and government guidance changes now allow the inclusion of land for student housing and older persons’ accommodation in future housing supplies. The borough therefore retains the required 5 year housing land supply, at 5.81 years A total of 29 affordable dwellings have been brought to the market during the year Overall housing affordability has improved slightly with lower quartile prices now 8.8 times lower quartile household incomes, although this remains well above the national average and nearly double the figure seen in Welwyn Hatfield as recently as the late 1990s. The Economy A significant amount of new employment floorspace was completed during the year – a gain of almost 15,000m2 (net). This is the first year since 2009/10 that employment floorspace has increased, and is considered to be an encouraging sign The amount of available employment land has reduced accordingly to 21.6 hectares, across 7 allocated sites which are left awaiting development The number of jobs in the borough has increased significantly to 79,000, equal to 1.07 jobs for every working-age resident which is well above the national average The rate of Job Seekers Allowance claimants has fallen significantly during the year to 1.7% of the working-age population, whilst educational attainment has improved. The Environment and Sustainability There has been no change to the number of heritage assets (such as listed buildings) or areas of biodiversity importance (such as wildlife sites) within the borough during the year Where assessed, there has also been no change in the condition of these assets The amount of urban open land in the borough has decreased by 4,400m2, although this was largely the result of a decision allowed on appeal after the Council’s refusal Stanborough Park and the Kings George V Playing Fields have retained their green flag awards, and Hatfield Lawn Cemetery has been given the award for the first time. Infrastructure There has not been any major new infrastructure completed in the borough during the year During the year the Council received £385,000 in ‘Section 106’ funds secured from new development, which is committed to sports and leisure facility improvements. Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) Site Monitoring There has been progress during the year on one of the borough’s three sites with SPDs – Broadwater Road West in Welwyn Garden City. The housing development on the Taylor Wimpey part of the site was completed during the year, with significant progress on plans for the Spenhill and Pall Mall parts of the site. 3 Introduction to the AMR What is the AMR? This is the tenth Annual Monitoring Report produced by Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, and covers the period between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014 (the ‘monitoring year’). The AMR serves a number of purposes: To act as a record of the amount of development which has taken place in the borough during the year and of how the borough’s population and places are performing; To assess how that development meets the Council’s targets across a number of indicators, and compares to the progress made in previous years; To set out projections and expectations for future development in the borough, and act as a feedback mechanism for policies and approaches which may need to change; To set out the Council’s progress against its ‘Local Development Scheme’, a high-level project plan for the production of new planning documents and policies. Chapters and contents The main contents of the AMR are set out across the following 11 chapters. Most contain a number of specific indicators (see below) and are themed by topic: Chapter 1 is contextual, setting out key information about the borough and its people; Chapters 2-4 cover the Council’s ‘plan-making’ duties, and how it engages with the public and cooperates with other public authorities and stakeholders; Chapter 5 examines the effectiveness of current District Plan policies; Chapters 6-10 cover the amount and quality of new development built in the borough; Chapter 11 deals with specific areas of the borough covered by Supplementary Planning Documents, including the Broadwater Road West site in Welwyn Garden City. Indicators Under previous planning regulations, the AMR was required to report against a number of National Core Output Indicators. In addition to this, the Council had a set of its own contextual indicators and local indicators. The new national Planning Practice Guidance sets out various pieces of information which local planning authorities should report annually, but is otherwise not prescriptive on what an AMR should contain. The opportunity has therefore been taken to review the indicators used in the AMR from this year onwards, in line with those proposed in the Council’s 2012 Emerging Core Strategy.

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