Council must stick to housing numbers for now, says Government

The Government has said the Borough must keep to its local plan despite appeals from the council leader to bring the target housing numbers down.

Housing targets for each local authority were historically set by the Government – affecting housing allocation in the Borough Local Plan (BLP).

In December, it was announced that Government targets for local authority areas were effectively going to be relaxed, switching from mandatory to advisory.

At the end of February, Councillor Andrew Johnson wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for housing asking for more ‘flexibility’ on housing targets, even though the BLP is already in motion.

But this move prompted a backlash from opposition councillors, who accused the Conservative of ‘electioneering’.

In a reply sent this month, Rachel Maclean MP, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, wrote that she ‘understand[s]’ the concern but ‘current national policy remains in force’.

Central government is in the process of going through the responses of a consultation which ended in March, looking at whether to enshrine the new policy into law.

Any changes will be confirmed when the national framework is updated later this year.

“Until that time … local plans should continue to be prepared in line with [national policy],” wrote Ms Maclean. “I do need to be clear that the proposals in the consultation are not currently Government policy and may be subject to change.”

Despite this, Cllr Johnson said he felt ‘quite positive’ about the response.

“They have taken our concerns seriously and there may be scope for some future changes. It’s clear they are hopeful about changing national legislation,” he said.

“I think there’s definitely a potential win here, in terms of us looking towards a more sustainable Borough Local Plan.”

He said that once the Government makes changes, if he is still council leader, he will ‘immediately’ call for a review.

“We can’t be under any illusions – we can’t put sites back on the greenbelt,” Cllr Johnson added.

“But what it might do is taper those housing numbers off slightly towards the end of the plan period.”

Opponents remain critical.

“Andrew Johnson has had chances in the past to review the number of developments,” Lib Dem leader Simon Werner said.

“In 2020 he not only rejected it but argued quite passionately that we should keep to these extortionate housing numbers.”

Cllr Werner pledged that if the Lib Dems did get into power, they will ‘open up the BLP and strip out some of the more ridiculous suggestions.’

Cllr Lynne Jones, leader of the local independents, said she was ‘pleased’ with the response from Government because it is ‘logical’.

However, she echoed concerns that the council did not ‘push back’ on its local plan enough.

“There have been several councils that have pushed back. Ours didn’t,” she said.

“They know they messed up. They know they put through a BLP to sell off our land to pay off debt where we have spent the money before it came in.”

She said that, even when queried by the BLP inspector whether the council was sure of its housing numbers, based on a 2012 forecast, the borough stuck to them.

“For them to now [do this] is beyond a joke,” she said.

“They’re saying ‘It had nothing to do with us, we had to do it’ – well, they didn’t. They wanted to.”

The Borough ‘can’t go back’ on much of the BLP as the council has ‘already given up a lot of our land for flats’, Cllr Jones added – but it can ‘go forward with better attention’, should the
legislation change.