Calderdale Housing Campaign

How many new dwellings are the Council required to provide?

Councils like Calderdale are required to provide a minimum number of new dwellings over the period of their Development Plan; the precise number is determined by a document called the Regional Spatial Strategy.

So, what is the number for Calderdale, and where is the Council up to in meeting its target? The most recent Council statement is contained in their Housing topic paper (December 2004) prepared for the UDP Public Inquiry, from which the following is an extract

"3.1 The housing requirement for Calderdale is set down in RPG12 (which became part of the development plan for Calderdale under the transitional arrangements reflected in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004). In December 2004, the Regional Spatial Strategy for Yorkshire and the Humber to 2016 was published.  ...  Policy H1 of both the RPG and the RSS states that the housing requirement in development plans should be expressed in a way which enables the annual average increase in the housing stock to be achieved as set down in this policy. This requires the Calderdale UDP to make provision for 450 dwellings per annum over the Plan period (2001 to 2016) which amounts to 6750 dwellings over the whole of the Plan period. ...

... 4.2 Existing commitments mean that far more land is available in phase 1 than is required to meet this proportion of the overall housing requirement. Indeed the phase 1 supply has increased substantially since publication of the Housing Technical Paper in June 2003 due to the number of completions in the intervening period (1189) and the increase in the number of dwellings with planning permission (953). Table 7 and Graph 2 summarise the relationship between the RPG housing requirement and the provision made in the RCUDP. The requirement for provision to be made for 8100 dwellings in the period 1998 to 2016 has already been exceeded with completions to date (4159) and commitments in the form of planning permissions (5054) totalling 9213 dwellings at September 2004.

4.3 Given the expectation from Government that the planning system must respond to the demands created by Climate Change new proposals must also contribute to sustainability in terms of location, accessibility and building design including energy efficiency. Issues centreing around Environmental Capacity (water resources etc) will form part of a more rigorous assessment of applications for residential development.

4.4 Given the level of existing commitments it is currently difficult to control the precise order in which sites will come forward. ...  Given that phase 1 still has over a year to run (until 1/4/06) and that draft new housing figures will be released as part of the RSS process by April 2005, it would be prudent at this stage to await the outcome of the RSS before re-assessing the 2nd and 3rd phases of the Plan in order to assess how any future housing requirement will be met. "

So it seems that Calderdale had already met its target for new dwellings by the end of 2004 - 12 years before it should have. Obviously, in recent years, the Council must have approved many more new houses than they were required to do to meet their annual regional target.

Now that they have done this, what are they now proposing to do for the next 12 years? 

Or do they intend to continue approving evermore housing developments; and if so, where will these be? 

If this were to happen, what would be the consequences: for local communities across Calderdale; for the infrastructure associated with new housing - schools, surgeries, roads and transport; and for sustainability?

The last paragraph (4.4) indicates the Council's approach in December 2004; that they intended to wait until the RSS was revised again in 2005-6 before deciding what to do.

Home page

What you can do?

Launch press release

News from planning battles

The fight for the Furtex Mill site

Objectives of the Campaign

Join our discussion group

Statement by Chris McCafferty

How to respond to a housing planning application

Calderdale Council and affordable housing

Can we make new houses more sustainable?

How many new dwellings are the Council required to provide?

STOP PRESS

15th July: Council refuses huge Crow Nest, Hebden Bridge planning application

New Council housing strategy 2005-10 and affordability housing policy report