Northampton Borough Council Land Availability Assessment September 2017 Regeneration, Enterprise & Planning Northampton Borough Council, The Guildhall, St Giles Square Northampton NN1 1DE 0300 330 7000 www.northampton.gov.uk Northampton Borough Council Land Availability Assessment September 2017 Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Purpose of the assessment ................................................................................................ 5 1.2 The Northampton Local Plan Process .............................................................................. 7 2 Methodology for the Northampton Land Availability Assessment (2017) ............................ 9 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Stage 1 – Site Identification ................................................................................................ 9 2.3 Stage 2 – Sites / Broad Location Assessment............................................................... 11 2.4 Stage 2a. Estimating the Housing Potential of Each Site ............................................ 12 2.5 Stage 3 - Windfall Assessment ........................................................................................ 13 2.6 Stage 4 – Assessment Review ........................................................................................ 14 2.7 Stage 5 – Final evidence Base ........................................................................................ 14 3 Policy Context ............................................................................................................................. 15 3.2 Spatial context .................................................................................................................... 15 3.3 National Policy Context ..................................................................................................... 16 3.4 Local Policy Context .......................................................................................................... 17 3.5 Employment sites ............................................................................................................... 18 3.6 Availability ............................................................................................................................ 18 3.7 Achievability ........................................................................................................................ 18 3.8 Viability ................................................................................................................................. 19 3.9 Deliverability ........................................................................................................................ 20 4 Windfall Developments .............................................................................................................. 21 4.1 Core Windfall Projections .................................................................................................. 21 4.2 Historic Windfall Delivery Rates ....................................................................................... 21 4.3 Summary of Approach ....................................................................................................... 22 4.4 Calculating the Windfall Potential for Northampton ...................................................... 23 4.5 Windfall Allowance ............................................................................................................. 23 4.6 Local Circumstances and Justification for Including Windfall Allowance .................. 24 4.7 Consideration of the LAA .................................................................................................. 24 4.8 Future Approach ................................................................................................................. 24 4.9 Light Industrial to Residential (Class PA) ....................................................................... 25 4.10 Windfall Projection for the Central Area ............................. 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Bookmark not defined. 4.13 Windfall Total and Phasing Over the Plan Period ......................................................... 25 Northampton Land Availability Assessment 2017 2 5 Results ......................................................................................................................................... 27 5.2 Sites Consultation Preparation ......................................................................................... 27 5.3 Assessment results ............................................................................................................ 29 5.4 Suitability, availability and achievability .......................................................................... 29 5.5 Development potential ....................................................................................................... 30 5.6 Size Assessment ................................................................................................................ 30 5.7 Deliverability ........................................................................................................................ 30 1.2 Monitoring ............................................................................................................................ 32 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 32 6.2 Summary of Potential Housing and Employment .......................................................... 32 6.3 Housing ................................................................................................................................ 33 6.4 Deliverability ........................................................................................................................ 33 Northampton Land Availability Assessment 2017 3 Appendix A Northampton Local Plan Part 2 Issues Consultation Stage - Summary of Responses to the Land Availability Assessment (LAA) Methodology Appendix B Sites that pass the Stage 2 Assessment Appendix C Sites that fail the Stage 2 Assessment Appendix D Sites that fail the Stage 1 Assessment Appendix E Site Specific Stage 2 Assessments Northampton Land Availability Assessment 2017 4 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of the assessment 1.1.1 The assessment of land availability makes an important contribution in the preparation of local plans. The Council’s Local Plan must be based on a sound evidence base and Land Availability Assessments are a central piece of evidence used to inform the allocation of sites and setting housing and economic targets. 1.1.2 The primary aims of this LAA are to: • Combine the assessment of housing, employment and windfall into a single document; • Update the methodology for assessing the suitability of sites following representations made during the Local Plan Consultation 2016 and to align it with Planning Practice Guidance1; • Assess the suitability of sites with potential for development; • Assess if sites are available for development; • Determine if the sites have any viability or other achievability issues that could impact on delivery; • Assess if sites are deliverable within the first five years of the Local Plan’s adoption, or are developable later in or beyond the plan period 1.1.3 It is not the role of the LAA to make definitive judgments on which sites should be allocated in the Northampton Local Plan Part 2. Instead, it identifies sites with potential for development to inform policy decisions about growth in the Borough to achieve the strategy set out in the West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy, 20142 (JCS). 1.1.4 The National Planning Policy Framework3 states that local planning authorities need 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. Northampton is in the position of needing to provide a 20% buffer. 1.1.5 In January 2012, the West Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit undertook a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA). This document was used as evidence to inform the JCS, which set the policy approach to deliver the 1 Planning Practice Guidance, Department for Communities and Local Government, 2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/planning-practice-guidance 2 West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy Local Plan (Part 1), West Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit, December 2014 www.westnorthamptonshirejpu.org 3 National Planning Policy Framework, Department for Communities and Local Government, March 2012 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2 Northampton Land Availability Assessment 2017 5 housing requirement for Northampton Borough as well as Daventry District and South Northamptonshire Councils. Since the SHLAA was published