Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 Nuthurst Parish Council Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 Produced by the Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee Page 1 of 12 Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 1. Purpose The purpose of this report is to show how potential development sites for new houses submitted by landowners and residents of the Parish of Nuthurst for consideration under the Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan have been assessed. This report will form part of the evidence base for the Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan. 2. Methodology Following Nuthurst Parish’s designation as a Neighbourhood Area on 31 October 2013, the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee published a “call for potential sites” on all the Parish notice boards, on the Neighbourhood Plan website and on Nuthurst Parish Council’s website on 24 January 2014. Residents of the Parish were also invited to suggest potential development sites in their responses to the Housing Needs Survey carried out during February 2014. Fifteen sites were put forward by landowners or their agents for consideration from the “call for potential sites”. Two of these sites were subsequently withdrawn by the landowners prior to assessment. A further fifteen sites were put forward by residents in their responses to the Housing Needs Survey carried out in February 2014. These sites were only included for assessment by Steering Committee when the landowner gave written permission for them to be considered as potential sites for development. Landowners of eight of these fifteen sites gave this permission. In addition, the Steering Committee included any site not already put forward that was assessed as developable in Horsham District Council’s revised Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) published in January 2014. There was one such site, Swallowfield Nursery, assessed as currently developable in 6-10 years. As a result of this process, twenty two sites were put forward for consideration as shown in the location map at Appendix 1 and described in Table 1 at Appendix 2. Horsham District Council (HDC) expects 1,500 new houses to come forward in its area from Neighbourhood Planning according to its draft Planning Framework, but HDC has not allocated housing numbers to individual Parishes. HDC has left it to individual Parishes to decide. Page 2 of 12 Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 A General Survey of residents in the Parish was carried out in February 2014. This revealed that residents wanted an average of 5 or fewer new houses built per year over the next 15 years (equivalent to 75 or fewer houses over the 15 year period). Residents wanted smaller houses for younger people and for elderly people to “down-size”. Residents did not want any large developments and expressed a wish for small developments spread across the Parish. The results of the survey are recorded in the “State of the Parish Report”. The Steering Committee organised two public meetings on 13 and 15 May 2014 and invited each landowner to make a presentation about the site and proposals for development. Members of the public were invited to make comments or ask questions after each presentation. This enabled the Steering Committee to obtain an initial reaction from residents about the sites and the proposals. Subsequently one more site (number 10 in Table 1) was withdrawn by the landowner. 3. Assessment criteria Advice on the assessment criteria was obtained from the Planning Consultant. Assessment criteria have been based on those factors shown to be important to the residents in the General Survey and via consultation work carried out by the Steering Committee and its Focus Groups at “Open Days”. Open Days for the general public were held on 9 and 12 November 2013, for business people on 21 January 2014, for key stage 1 and 2 children at St Andrews School on 28 January and 4 February 2014, for secondary aged children on 29 January 2014. These criteria also took into account the saved policies in Horsham District Council’s existing Planning Framework (2007), the emerging policies in its new draft Planning Framework (HDPF, May 2014) and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). A. Site within or adjoining an existing built up area boundary (2007 CP5) or a proposed amended new boundary (HDPF Policy 4) for Mannings Heath. Site within or adjoining an observed settlement boundary for settlements outside Mannings Heath. Note: residents expressed a preference for development within the built up area boundary but only Mannings Heath has such a boundary and no sites were available within the boundary. Page 3 of 12 Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 B. Scheme will retain existing settlement pattern and avoid settlement coalescence (HDPF policy 2 and 26). C. Scheme scale will be appropriate to scale and services of the settlement and can be contained within a defensible boundary, e.g. existing road, hedgerow, field boundary (HDPF Policy 4). D. Scheme has local social or economic needs or environmental improvement exceptional circumstances (2007 CP8 and HDPF Policy 4). For example a new community facility or improved local infrastructure. E. Gross site size is greater than 0.16 Ha and can deliver 5 or more homes to justify affordable housing provision (2007 CP12). Or is greater than 0.5 Ha and 14 homes to deliver a higher proportion of affordable homes (HDPF Policy 15). Any site delivering 5 or more homes triggers affordable housing provision. F. Site landowner would be happy to provide land for a rural exception site adjoining the built up area boundary where there is no justification for open market housing (2007 DC30 and HDPF Policy 16). G. Site outside an area of known flood risk, ie flood zones 2 or 3 (2007 DC7 and HDPF Policy 37). See Environment Agency Fluvial Flood Risk – Figure L in SOPR and Ground Water Flood Risk- Figure M in State of the Parish Report. Note: none of the sites put forward are in flood zones 2 and 3. H. Site outside nor within the immediate setting of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) (2007 DC4 and HDPF Policy 29). Note: two of the sites (numbers 14 and 19 in Table 1) put forward are within the High Weald AONB. I. Scheme on land with a relatively lower landscape sensitivity to development (2007 DC 2 and HDPF Policies 2, 24 and 25). J. Scheme will address land contamination and brownfield land (HDPF Policy 23). Note: only one brownfield site (number 7 in Table 1) was Page 4 of 12 Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 put forward. The Steering Committee gave equivalent consideration to agricultural/horticultural sites with derelict constructions. K. Scheme will accord with standard development principles (2007 DC and HDPF Policy 32). For example access or other physical constraint will make it difficult to achieve a viable scheme. To aid the assessment these criteria were rephrased as questions as follows: A. Is it in or adjoining the existing built up area boundary (Mannings Heath) or existing observed settlement boundary (other settlements)? B. Is it in keeping with the way way existing properties are arranged in the settlement and not joining up with any adjacent settlement? C. Is the scale appropriate to the services of the settlement and contained by existing roads, hedges, field boundaries etc? D. Is it claimed by landowners to provide additional social or economic benefits to the wider Parish community? E. Is it big enough (0.16 hectares and 5 or more houses) to provide affordable housing? F. Not considered relevant at this stage. G. Is it in an area of known flood risk (flood zones 2 or 3)? H. Is it in the High Weald AONB? I. Is it in a location where it will be particularly detrimental to the existing landscape? J. Is it a brownfield site or will it rectify an existing land contamination problem? K. Is it not viable because of other issues such as access and safety concerns? Page 5 of 12 Nuthurst Parish Neighbourhood Plan Site Assessment Report September 2014 4. Initial Assessment of sites The Steering Committee carried out an initial assessment of twenty one sites. The assessment criteria were not weighted at this stage, although it was noted that any site within the High Weald AONB and in flood risk zones 2 and 3 would not be technically suitable unless there were no alternative sites. The initial assessment is recorded in Table 2 in Appendix 3. The initial assessment of sites was presented to a public meeting of the Steering Committee held on 24 June 2014. The Steering Committee put forward a provisional short list of sites based on the initial assessment consisting on sites number 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21 and 22. Following comments from the public and a landowner, the Steering Committee agreed to add sites 3 and 9 to the provisional short list and to review all its initial assessments. 5. Further assessment of sites The Steering Committee wrote to the landowners of the sites on the provisional short list and reminded them of the residents’ views on development as recorded in the State of the Parish Report. The Steering Committee sought further information in a standard format about their site and their proposals. The Steering Committee carried out a review of its assessment of all sites using the same criteria but taking into account further advice from the Planning Consultant particularly on landscape sensitivity. The results of this review are recorded in Table 3 in Appendix 4. The Steering Committee then considered the relative importance of each criterion and assigned a weighting score to each criterion according to its importance.