Fears over strain on roads as Bucks considers new housing sites

Buckinghamshire Council is stepping up activity to form its local plan – which will guide what can be built in Bucks up until 2045.

Work on a Local Plan for Buckinghamshire has been underway for several years. The draft version went out for consultation in September and attracted more than 1,300 responses.

National policy changes in 2024 resulted in a significantly higher housing requirement for Buckinghamshire, which it must address in the Plan.

At a Growth, Infrastructure & Housing Select Committee on Tuesday, councillors said Bucks is ‘on track’ despite the ‘tight’ timetable which was ‘forced’ upon them.

It is aiming to publish the full local plan in July for a six-week consultation – and must submit this by December 31 to meet Government deadlines.

Currently, officers are assessing potential site allocations, ie pieces of land earmarked for housing, employment, or a mix.

It is also doing a greenbelt review and looking at options for new settlements or urban extensions.

Cllr Susan Morgan, Liberal Democrat leader, raised concerns that the sites under consideration are only three per cent brownfield.

Planning policy manager for Bucks council, Charlotte Morris, said that though a hundred sites were identified as brownfield, these were all quite small.

Bucks is looking at other options to ‘maximise’ other urban sites – but there is nonetheless ‘a limited supply’, she said.

Some councillors are concerned that if any potential housing sites are passed over, the local authority will simply not be able to meet its targets.

Cllr Jonathan Waters (Lib Dem, Penn, Tylers Green & Loudwater) said he thought Buckinghamshire is likely going to have to use ‘all methods’ to come ‘anywhere near’.

“We’re going to have to look at a new town somewhere,” he said.

“If you start putting a lot of small sites in, they’re piggybacking off the [infrastructure] already there and that puts everything under pressure.”

Multiple councillors raised concerns over how the county’s infrastructure might indeed creak under the strain of thousands of new homes.

Cllr Peter Strachan, cabinet member for planning, responded to say the administration was ‘very alert’ to this risk.

“Any form of development without suitable infrastructure – roads, schools, hospitals – is a disaster. It blights our residents,” he said.

Cllr Waters said he thought infrastructure links, eg roads, are ‘the biggest concern’ as communities get larger.

Most developers will not be prepared to pay for such costly upgrades themselves – and this has already previously caused difficulties, he said.

Affordable housing was also a concern. Cllr Hazel Arthur-Hewitt (IMPACT Alliance, Downley) said there was a ‘big issue’ with retaining key workers who cannot afford to live locally.

She said affordable housing was ‘proving difficult to deliver’ in Bucks and asked what could be done.

Cllr Strachan replied that affordable housing percentages are baked into Local Plan’s policies – but it will likely remain a challenge, given the freedoms of developers under national rules.

On the housing subject, Cllr Morgan said she thought it was a ‘mistake’ that Bucks council is not looking at building its own housing.

“At this point, I think it’s the only way we’re ever going to clear the backlog. Reliance on developers isn’t a good thing,” she said.