Comment
Decisions made on the first Annual Position Statements
The Planning Inspectorate has published decisions on two of the three Annual Position Statements (APS) submitted by local authorities in July 2019.
Fylde Borough Council, Wyre Council and Mid Sussex District Council submitted a draft APS to The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) for examination in July 2019. As discussed in our article in September 2019, APS provide an opportunity for a local planning authority with a “recently adopted” Local Plan to confirm and “fix” its five year housing land supply (5-YHLS) position. The result would be that the local planning authority cannot have its 5-YHLS position challenged at either application or appeal for one year.
The Inspectorate has confirmed that Wyre Council’s APS does demonstrate that it has a five year deliverable housing land supply. However, it has disagreed with the position in Fylde Borough Council’s submitted APS and confirms that Fylde cannot demonstrate a five year deliverable supply of housing land.
Wyre Council’s APS
The decision on Wyre’s APS was published on 15 January 2020 and confirms that the local authority has a 5.18 year supply. This is down on the 5.64 years that the local authority claimed in its published APS, as the Inspector concluded that Wyre Council should remove 313 dwellings across 10 sites from its deliverable supply.
In assessing Wyre’s five year housing requirement, the Inspector considered that the “Liverpool method” of spreading the shortfall in housing delivery since 2011 across the whole Plan period is appropriate. This is the approach taken to the housing requirement in the adopted Wyre Local Plan, and the Inspector’s decision on the APS states that the local planning authority’s good performance against the Housing Delivery Test indicates that the use of the Liverpool method will still achieve a significant boost to housing supply.
Wyre Council is now updating its APS to reflect the decision of the Inspector. As a result of this decision, it will not be possible to challenge Wyre Council’s five year deliverable housing land supply until 31 October 2020.
Fylde Borough Council’s APS
Fylde Borough Council’s (FBC) submitted APS sought to confirm that the local planning authority has a 5.3 year supply. However, the Inspector examining the APS did not agree with this position, concluding that FBC only has a 4.1 year supply.
As with the decision on Wyre’s APS, the Inspector reduced Fylde’s deliverable supply by removing 120 units from the supply across four sites. However, contrasting with the approach taken by the Inspector examining Wyre’s APS, the Inspector determined that Fylde’s shortfall in past delivery should be spread across the initial five year period using the “Sedgefield method” rather than the Liverpool method. This conflicts with the position taken in Fylde’s adopted Local Plan, which applies the Liverpool method.
The reasoning given by the Inspector for using the Sedgefield method is that since the Fylde Local Plan Examination in July 2017, Fylde’s 5-YHLS has steadily decreased and the local planning authority has not taken any steps to address this decline in supply. The use of the Sedgefield method would therefore boost housing supply in the early years of the Local Plan.
The use of the Sedgefield method has resulted in Fylde’s housing requirement in the five year period increasing from the 2,637 dwellings in the submitted APS to 3,199 dwellings (21% increase). This increase, in combination with the reduction in deliverable supply, has resulted in Fylde not being able to demonstrate a 5-YHLS.
The Inspector’s decision that Fylde does not have a deliverable five year supply will remain “fixed” until 31 October 2020. As a result, and in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework, the housing policies within the Fylde Local Plan are now out-of-date and applications for residential development within Fylde will be assessed against the Presumption in Favour of Sustainable Development.
FBC considers that the Inspector has acted unlawfully in reconsidering the housing requirement in the adopted Local Plan. It has asked PINS to reconsider its decision on its APS, but PINS has declined to do so. FBC is therefore considering a legal challenge to the Inspector’s decision. In the meantime, it has published an updated APS which assesses the reduced deliverable housing supply stated by the Inspector in the decision on the submitted APS against its housing requirement in the adopted Local Plan. Against that requirement, Fylde is claiming a 5.1 year supply. However, the conclusions of the Inspector on Fylde’s deliverable housing land supply position will remain valid until a successful legal challenge is made.
If you would like to discuss the potential implications of the above, or would like to discuss housing supply matters in general, please get in touch with Paul Forshaw, Mike O’Brien or Nick Graham.
12 February 2020