If you want a fine example of our broken planning system read the letter published by the leader of East Hampshire District Council (Cllr. Richard Millard) on 11 July 2024 and addressed to Angela Rayner MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. He is upset. You will get why. Having employed a heavyweight planning barrister (Paul Brown KC) Millard has seen the nasty trap opening up for his residents; that his area must swallow , to meet the standard methodology to provide about 11,000 new homes by 2040. (Better not to ask what his council’s spatial policy is after 2040. It would be unfair. They do not do long term, despite admitting there are very few brownfield sites which haven’t already been developed). The snag is, and he has a proper point, this figure does not take into account that 57% of his authority’s area is protected from development. It is a designated national park: South Downs National Park. Meaning the remaining 43% must take the lion’s share of development.
Cllr Millard says in his letter ‘We cannot work with fairy tales and an absence of information’. Then he adds this conclusion will put pressure on ‘our highly-prized countryside and our rural twins and villages, which have already seen so much change in the last few years’, adding ‘We will also be under pressure to accommodate homes from more densely developed neighbouring authorities that cannot expect to meet to meet their own targets, such as Portsmouth and Havant.’ Instead Cllr Millard wants recognition the standard method fails to take into account East Hampshire’s geography or the fact that a national park covers over half the area. Simply put, he wants East Hampshire to be treated as an exception.
All true. All good stuff. He makes powerful points. But reality remains. Where do his houses go if East Hampshire is given an exemption? There are lots of East Hampshires with their own unique and powerful reasons for being given exemptions. One option that a far sighted and shrewd local council might think is ……’ok, we have a spatial problem. Let’s share it with our residents and our neighbouring councils. After all 43% of our land is not protected. We say building in it is not sustainable. But let’s ask some clever master planners and architects how they would solve the housing problem within the 43% remaining on a sustainable basis within 15/30/60 years. Spatial experts will start with the travel to work catchment capacity options, and evolve from that fixed reality. Then let’s look at their conclusion. . If we like it, we set up our new town development corporation and tell the government we have a solution with local support. If we don’t like it, or cannot buy off the local opposition with financial incentives we accept that our housing overspill must be exported to neighbouring authorities and that all our residents, through their rates will pay residents in the host locations the price they want to accept our overspill housing.’
Is this asking too much? After all we live in a mixed economy.
Ian Campbell
12 July 2024
