A Village Near You?

Affordable Housing - Charles Wreford-Brown

Whilst we appreciate that in reality land development will only affect a very small number of rural land owners directly,  indirectly it will affect many of our clients. Local Planning Authorities, due to pressure from Central Government, are now actively trying to drive forward with Affordable Housing/Housing Schemes in local settlements in order to meet the Policies of their Local Development Framework.

As an example, South Hams District Council have published their Site Allocations Development Plan Documents (DPD's) where they have prioritised the production of site allocations and identified sites for needed development of housing (especially affordable homes), employment and associated community facilities.

The DPD's are required to make firm development site proposals to meet housing provisions to 2016 and in order to follow national advice to plan for the longer term the DPD provision for the period to 2026 and beyond. The ultimate effect of this is that considerable work is now taking place within your region on the future development expansion of towns and villages for the next twenty years. Possibly your village?

Consideration has been given to existing housing needs and projected needs post 2016. In the case of South Hams, the Prince’s Foundation were commissioned with the benefit of housing need to come up with a number of potential sites for each settlement; to also consider the strengths and weaknesses of these sites. This report was published in the summer of 2009 and further specific site allocation work took place over the autumn culminating in the publication state of the DPD's on 17th December last.

This Firm has been busy dealing with the promotion of the sites and negotiating with House Builders Option Agreements to take sites forward at their cost and promote through the Planning Process.