BARD is a community action group created in 2012 by residents of Buntingford and neighbourhood parishes

East Herts District Council Planning Policy Team Wallfields Pegs Lane Herts SG13 8EQ Thursday 22 May 2014 Dear Planning Policy Team, East Herts Draft District Plan 2014 Comments by Buntingford Action for Responsible Development (BARD) BARD is a community action group created in 2012 by residents of Buntingford and neighbourhood parishes General Concerns BARD s comments below include criticisms of the Strategy being proposed by EHDC, which BARD considers is based on an inadequate and inaccurate evidence base, and a failure by EHDC to reflect national planning policy, or to set out planning proposals appropriate to either the District as a whole, or to Buntingford in particular. In commenting, we highlight the excessive housing provision for the District proposed in the draft Plan, leading to unjustified proposals for development of greenfield sites both within the Green Belt between the towns south of Buntingford, and in the countryside around the town. We consider this to be contrary to the national planning policies in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). BARD believes that the excessive scale of proposed housing provision is a result of EHDC s housing evidence base being flawed, and that the Council has therefore failed to meet NPPF policy that emphasises the need for protection of the Green Belt when determining local plan proposals for the amount of total housing provision within a local authority s area. NPPF policy on this matter was recently re-affirmed in writing by the Planning Minister following criticisms of the Government and the Planning Inspectorate in applying NPPF policies. The meaning of the NPPF on housing provision in Green Belt areas was also recently confirmed in a legal case in St Albans District, and EHDC should be applying NPPF policies as other Hertfordshire planning authorities, including St Albans Council, are understood to be doing, in preparing its District Plan. 1

The main issue is therefore that the proposed level of housing provision for the District, of a minimum of 15,000 houses by 2031, is not justified given the extent of Green Belt in the arc between and around Bishop s Stortford, Ware, Hertford, Welwyn Garden City and Stevenage, which is where EHDC considers future development would be most sustainable. Consequently a significantly reduced scale of housing provision should be defined by EHDC, based primarily, but not exclusively, on the housing needs of the District s existing population and households, rather than promoting unconstrained in-migration from other parts of the Country, which would be more appropriate for sustainable locations that are not constrained by national planning and environmental policies. Such an overall reduction in provision would enable the distribution of housing development to locations within and around the District s towns and villages that can be accommodated in parallel with infrastructure provision, within the overall capacity of infrastructure that would otherwise be breached by the levels of development currently proposed. BARD is also concerned that the amount of previously undeveloped land that the draft Plan proposes for development does not take into account a greater capacity for development within the District s main towns in particular, and on previously-developed land elsewhere. In particular the Plan totally ignores changes to legislation and regulations that now allow many non-residential properties to be used for housing, sometimes without the need for planning permission. This source of new housing should be used to offset the need to allocate so much farmland for housing in the Plan period. Examples of these general concerns and their implications are set out in our comments on Buntingford issues, housing needs, and housing supply below. Buntingford At present, based on the currently proposed 15,000 houses in the District, the draft Plan proposes the construction of 480 new houses on 2 sites at Buntingford, on top of windfall (unstated number) and infill sites (13) and the 271 permitted or built since 2011. Yet the Council s Housing Needs Assessment states that only 298 houses are needed up to 2031 by local households and population in the town and surrounding area, the rest comprising in-migration of households from the rest of the District that require affordable housing, and households from East Herts and other parts of the Country and abroad that simply wish to live here. While the sustainability of this is already dubious without enough employment opportunities in the town or accessible by public transport, the draft Plan has already been overtaken by events, with 260 houses having already been permitted on sites considered unsuitable by the draft Plan. The recently commissioned employment study of Buntingford for the Council confirms the inadequacy and 2

unsustainability of housing development without significant employment provision, and the inherent and worsening ability of the town s infrastructure and services to meet essential requirements. However, a reduction in the proposed level and rate of house-building in the District as a whole, would enable the scale of new housing proposals within Buntingford to be reduced, thereby minimising the mismatch between the currently proposed increase in working population and availability of employment accessible by sustainable means of transport. In particular the Plan should be changed to reflect the development already permitted in the town in 2014, by amending the proposal for the former Sainsbury s depot site to include a significantly higher proportion of employment land than currently proposed by Fairview in its current planning application, and to limit any future development at Buntingford during the period to 2031, to within the existing built-up area of the town, to be controlled by development management policies to that effect in the Plan and in any future Neighbourhood Plan. Need and Demand for Housing BARD s concerns about the draft Plan s evidence base, focuses on the Interim Development Strategy Report, published by the Council as the principal basis for the Plan. Nowhere in the Housing or Strategy sections of the Report is there any reference to the relationship between the level of assessed housing need and the planning and environmental constraints that should be taken into account in order to decide what proportion of that need should be met within the District. Indeed the entire document seems to be based on the false presumption that all the assessed needs must be met. Such a presumption is a major flaw that the draft Plan translates into proposed housing allocations, many of which may be unjustified. As an example of this flawed process, paragraph 4.5.6 states: National policy includes strict requirements to meet housing needs within each housing market area. This is simply not true. The objective enshrined in the NPPF is to seek to meet such needs, to the extent that other policies allow, with Green Belt protection being one explicit constraint (NPPF paragraph 14). The Interim Development Strategy Report, at paragraph 4.7.4 mistakenly repeats this interpretation in stating: The Planning Inspectorate is clear that the projections are the minimum level of development which should be achieved, and should not be seen as an arbitrary cap on development. This misinterpretation of national policy is compounded by housing need figures in the Strategy and the draft Plan that are in themselves excessive. The Interim Development Strategy Report (IDS), paragraph 4.2.2 states: objectively assessed need is 736 dwellings per annum but rounds this up 750, automatically inflating the housing total by 280 for the Plan period for the District as a whole. 3

The IDS says very little about how the Plan s housing need figure of 736 per annum was arrived at, seemingly totally reliant on 2013 official Housing figures (paragraph 4.2.5) that are publicly available. This quote is incomplete and omits the following key sentences, which state that the ONS and DCLG both emphasise that their figures are projections, not forecasts. They estimate what the effect would be if trends were to continue. Local authorities and others may therefore wish to consider whether the trends continue assumption is the most appropriate to make for their area. BARD also believes that the 2013 figures referred to were interim household projections from April 2013, and that too much reliance has been placed on them as a calculation of housing need. As confirmed by Edge Analytics, the Council s consultants in 2012 and 2013, we note that all of the base data for the Council s Housing Market Assessment is out of date, most of it pre-dating both the recession and fall in house prices, and the 2011 National Census, which needs to be the basis for household projections that are still not available. The excessive housing figures in the draft Plan have a knock-on effect on all parts of the District, including the rural area beyond the Green Belt where policies to recognise the character of the countryside apply. BARD s main concern is with the implications for Buntingford and its surrounding communities, but the over-inflated housing figures in the draft Plan clearly affect other parts of the District. BARD therefore asks the Council to re-calculate the level of housing need that should be met. This step would then assist decision making on the amount of housing land that needs to be made available for development in the short term, in order to avoid housing developments in unsustainable locations or in conflict with Development Plan policy in the period before the District Plan is adopted, as has recently happened at Buntingford. Also, in determining the extent to which this estimate of housing need should be accommodated, EHDC needs to reconsider the policy assumptions it has made as soon as possible. In view of the consequences of doing so for the communities and countryside of the District, the shortcomings of the background data and its application need to be recognised. Housing Supply The Interim Development Strategy Report, paragraph 4.3.21 states : The (Housing Land Availability) assessment concluded that it would be reasonable to assume an annual windfall allowance of 100 dwellings for the District Plan. However, in order not to over-estimate the potential supply from windfalls, it was considered appropriate to apply a percentage reduction to the annual windfall allowance of 100 dwellings, in recognition of the fact that windfall sites are by their nature a finite source of housing supply. Furthermore, it was also considered reasonable that because the District Plan runs for twenty years from 2011-2031, the percentage reduction should also be increased over time. 4

As noted above there have been a number of changes to both policies and regulations limiting changes of use of land and building to housing. These changes mean that many farm and other buildings in the countryside can now be converted to housing, including such buildings in the Green Belt, and for 3 years office premises can be converted to flats or houses without needing planning permission subject to very limited exceptions. Hundreds of such houses and flats have already been proposed in Hertfordshire this year, including premises in the towns in East Herts. One building in Hertford alone is being converted from offices to 63 flats without the need for permission. These alternative sources of housing far exceed the small scale windfall contribution included in the draft Plan. BARD thinks that the Council should carry out an urgent review of the studies being used for the Plan s evidence base, for both Housing Need and potential Housing Supply, with the objective of preparing a formal District Plan that minimises the need for housing on Greenfield sites in the District, and in particular, avoids further Greenfield development beyond that permitted in Buntingford, in view of the unsustainability of such development in this part of the District remote from many services, and from employment opportunities, by public transport. Employment Issues in Buntingford In coming to the above views on the draft Plan, BARD has also considered the Wessex Economics Employment Study commissioned by the Council, and believes that it has important implications for the District Plan, including decisions on the future of Site Bunt 2 South of Buntingford. In doing so we wish to point out that although the Study seems to focus on maximising the potential Housing and Employment provision that might be accommodated, such an approach fails to take other planning constraints into account, particularly in terms of local infrastructure and services. Of particular significance is that the Study takes no account at all of the lack of capacity for physical expansion of shops, offices other town centre services because of the character and street layout of the important town centre Conservation Area and Listed Buildings, compounded by a decade of residential infill and conversion of business and retail curtilages to flats and mews style housing with poor vehicle access. As a consequence the town has reached, or already exceeded (with the 1,000 recently built and approved houses and the Bunt 2 (Fairview) site), its capacity for new development during the period to 2031, and it is important that this is reflected in the District Plan when it goes on deposit for formal representations. We therefore include the following comments on the Executive Summary of the Wessex Economics Employment Study (WEES): The Study notes that the great majority of the 2,700 or so working residents who live in Buntingford, travel out of Buntingford to work, and less than 800 people both live and work in Buntingford. 5

This unsustainable reliance on jobs elsewhere has become a lot worse because the employment base of Buntingford has fallen significantly in the last decade as reported by the Study, from in excess of 2,000 jobs in the town in the period 1998 to 2004, to its current level of 1,300 to 1,400 people. This is largely attributable to the closure of the Sainsbury s Depot in 2004. The population of the town is now expected to grow substantially in the next decade. New housing schemes already approved can be expected to increase the population of the town by around 1,700 people. However, the Study notes that other schemes proposed by developers around the town could, if approved, increase the population by a further 2,350 people, an overall increase of 4,150 people, nearly doubling the town s size from the 2001 population. BARD is not alone in pointing out that such a scale of development is not sustainable, and cannot be accommodated sustainably. Even with the 700 new houses permitted, the Study calculates that the expected number of residents needing employment will grow by 690, and that 1,625 more working residents would need jobs if all the sites around the town were built on. The Study states that all of these people will be commuting out of the town to work unless additional jobs are created in Buntingford, the vast majority having to drive to work, as they do at present, because of the lack of any rail service, and poor bus services to employment in other towns and to rail connections to London. The Study also notes that there could be problems if a significant amount of affordable housing were secured as part of new development, because of new residents finding it difficult to access work, and limited opportunities being available in the town itself, pointing out that lower income groups are more likely to depend on local jobs. This is an important reason why the 40% affordable housing standard set by the Council across the District is not appropriate for a rural market town like Buntingford (actually the only such town in the District) lacking good access to employment, and why representations have repeatedly urged a reduced percentage for new development in the town. (Note that the draft Plan itself states that total housing need, including affordable housing, in the wider Buntingford Ward, is for only 298 houses by 2031). Most of the housing in Buntingford is of a standard type (much the same as that proposed by developers like Fairview, Barratts and Taylor Wimpey, etc). This standard housing has caused a problem as increasingly financially maturing families have not been able to trade upwards and remain in the town, and elderly households are unable to move from standard housing due the lack of suitable bungalow or specifically designed homes. Buntingford needs less such standard housing and more diverse housing to release the existing stock for new households, and attract people with small and developing businesses to set up close to home in Buntingford. Reducing the percentage of affordable housing would also enable developers such as Fairview at the Bunt 2 site, to create a design more appropriate to their location (and at Bunt 2, its town gateway position), and to accommodate the much needed employment floorspace needed to redress the current 6

imbalance, rather than perpetuating and fuelling unsustainable development in the town. WEES states that it would be desirable to grow the employment base of the town to increase the opportunities for people to live in Buntingford and to work locally, noting that the availability of local employment opportunities is particularly important to those who wish to work part time, those with lower skills and in lower paid work. The Study notes that the only potential for a significant increase in local employment is the largest site currently designated for employment use in Buntingford, the 11 hectare former Sainsbury Distribution Depot site. The study considers how much of the site should be retained for employment use, and recommends that 4 ha should be retained for employment uses, with around 12,000 sq m of employment floorspace in a mix of 1 and 2 storey buildings, that could lead to the creation of around 500 full time equivalent jobs, or 600 jobs in total (full and part time). Such provision would replace many of the jobs lost in Buntingford when the depot closed. This assessment takes into account patterns of take up of employment floorspace in East Herts, Fairview Homes s opinion on the viability of development, and the desirability of achieving a better balance between resident population and local employment opportunities, which BARD supports. WEES states that the former Sainsbury site is the best location for further development of employment floorspace in Buntingford in terms of location, existing access arrangements and the availability of essential infrastructure, and because it has potential to attract a different type of user to that attracted to the Buntingford Business Park. BARD agrees. BARD does not agree with WEES on the overall employment potential for additional development at the proposed extension to Buntingford Business Park because of the type of potential occupier there, or of the remaining capacity at Park Farm now that the Council has permitted vacant employment land at the latter to be developed for housing. While going some way towards creating local employment opportunities for some of the increase in working population, and replacement of the jobs lost when the Sainsbury s Depot closed, such provision would still fall far short of meeting the needs of existing working residents, and even further from the needs of 1,625 new working residents that would result from the development of all the developers sites around the town. Specific Issues BARD has also contributed to comments on the draft Plan submitted jointly by Buntingford Town Council, Buntingford Civic Society, Buntingford Chamber of Commerce, and BARD, and this includes comments on a number of individual draft policies and the draft Plan as a whole. 7

Of these we would like to single out the need to: 1) cap new housing provision to 2031 at the level resulting from the recently approved developments and development of the Bunt 2 site; 2) determine the proportion of affordable housing at any new development based on local criteria; and 3) the necessity for locally determined parking standards for new residential development to reflect local dependency on use of private cars for work and other essential journeys. We therefore also wish to re-emphasise the importance of the District Plan as a means to facilitate decision-making on planning policy at a local community level through neighbourhood plans wherever possible, and BARD s view that this is particularly necessary for communities such as Buntingford where the planning, environmental, economic and social context is demonstrably distinct from that of the other larger settlements in the District, and indeed from most settlements in Hertfordshire as a whole. Buntingford Action for Responsible Development May 2014 8