CPRE and Telegraph have crack at LPEG OAN Method

The issue

The LPEG method does not sum to OAN across all districts nationally, it includes a bonus based on demand factors – around 90,000 nationally

However it would be reasonable to include removal of backlog over say 10 years – around 50,000 an annum – using a slightly adjusted version of the NLP method used by LPEG, and focussing most of that uplift on growth corridors and areas rather than automatically per LPA – that the CPRE are rightly crying as problematic.

A quuestion though are CPRE saying we should build less than OAN+backlog or simply in the wrong place or both?

 

Telegraph

Theresa May and senior Cabinet ministers face a backlash from constituents after Government planning experts recommended increasing of up to 25 per cent in housing forecasts in the Home Counties.

The original forecasts were published by a Government panel which wants to cut the amount of time it takes for councils to publish local plans which set out where building can take place.

The news comes ahead of a major push, which could include relaxing building restrictions, by the Government in the new year to encourage more homes to be built.

Campaigners warned that the new year assault on housing will create “battles across England” because of the ambition of the targets.

In the Runnymede area represented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, local residents will have to prepare to accept a 20 per cent increase on top of existing forecasts.

In Tunbridge Wells, which is represented by the Business secretary Greg Clark, there could have to be another 22 per cent of new homes.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England which carried out the research said: “Considerably higher targets would necessitate the finding of even more sites, incur the loss of even more countryside, and make already-controversial local plans even more controversial.”

The CPRE warned that local residents could fight the plans if they threatened the countryside.

Theresa May last week CREDIT: FRANCOIS LENOIR/FRANCOIS LENOIR

Shaun Spiers, the CPRE’s chief executive, said: “Communities are increasingly willing to support housebuilding, but nothing is more toxic or calculated to cause battles over planning than excessively high housing targets.

“These force councils to release green fields and Green Belt for development and we all know what happens next.

“Developers cherry pick the most profitable rural sites, encourage sprawl and neglect brownfield land.”

Mr Spiers said that the Government should “think again and come up with a sensible, realistic way of calculating housing which everyone can get behind.

“If they choose instead to ratchet up the housing targets still further, there will be battles over housing across England – lots of strife, little delivery. That would be a huge shame.”

Councils are duty bound to publish five year housing plans in local development plans but only two thirds of local authorities in England have done so.

Last year ministers raised the prospect forcing councils which have not set up local plans to accept housing quotas.

The Local Plans Expert Group, which developed the new targets, was commissioned by Government to investigate reforms to local planning.

In March last year the group made a number of recommendations designed to increase the amount of land allocated for housebuilding in Local Plans.

One such recommendation was to increase the level of housing need identified in Objective Assessments of Need by including a ‘market signals’ uplift.

Academics who examined the plans estimated that the method would produce an extra 312,000 new homes a year, 90,000 more than the Government’s projections in 2012.

The Government’s response to the group’s report is expected to be included in the Housing White Paper next month.

The group was criticised when it was first set up in September 2015 because it comprised a number of developers, lawyers and planning experts