Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence. 

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To receive any declarations of personal or personal and prejudicial interests in respect of items on the agenda for this meeting. 

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To receive notification of any matters which the chairman determines should be considered as urgent business and the special circumstances which have made the matters urgent, and to receive any announcements from the chairman.

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Any statements, petitions, and questions from the public under standing order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.

The following members of the public and non-Cabinet members addressed the Cabinet on the interim housing supply policy:

(1)       Alan Divall of West Waddy Architects and Planners made a statement on behalf of Pye Homes.  He believed that the interim housing supply policy should allow development in the large villages of Shrivenham, Watchfield, and Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor.  These were the most sustainable villages in the district and their exclusion undermined the core strategy. 

(2)       Andrew Wagstaff of Dandara property developers made a statement objecting to the approach taken in the interim housing supply policy not to allow development in Wantage.  He believed that this one of the most sustainable locations in the district and would not see any development for many years if Wantage was excluded from this policy. 

(3)       Cabinet received a question from an anonymous Vale resident known as ‘Vale Citizen’.  This read: “I understand that the interim housing supply policy consultation will recommend that no Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty sites will qualify for interim housing supply policy status.  I would appreciate it if the Cabinet could consider the potential to include existing 'brown field' sites in the policy-screening phase, even if these sit within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, but otherwise meet the criteria.  This would seem to give flexibility to the planners to make constructive use of sites and may relieve development pressure elsewhere.” 

The chairman asked the planning officer to respond to these statements and question.  He replied that the council would take seriously the points raised by respondents to the consultation and those raised at this meeting.  The officers would look at each point made and discuss them with the Cabinet member with responsibility for planning.  If they considered a significant change was merited, they would report back to Cabinet before Council considered the policy on 16 May. 

With regard to policy excluding the villages of Shrivenham, Watchfield, and Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor and other sites allocated for housing development in the core strategy, the council did not want to overlap the interim housing supply policy with the core strategy as this would pre-judge the outcome of the core strategy process.  The planning officer pointed out that brownfield sites could still come forward under existing policies; there was no need to revise the interim housing supply policy to address that. 

The chairman then invited the non-Cabinet councillors to address the meeting. 

(1)       Councillor Jenny Hannaby asked how could parishes be confident that their voices would be heard?  She cited an example where the Monks Farm site north of Grove was chosen in the core strategy ahead of the Stockham Farm site north of Wantage.  This ignored local views.  She questioned whether the reduction in the number of houses at the Crab Hill site north-east of Wantage would deliver enough funding for the Wantage relief road.  She believed the council did not need to approve an interim housing supply policy and suggested that developers should  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64.

To consider report 83/11 of the head of planning. 

Cabinet considered report 83/11 of the head of planning.  The report informed Cabinet of the consultation responses on the draft interim housing supply policy.  Cabinet was asked to agree a response to the main issues and to consider whether and how to progress the policy. 

The Cabinet member for planning reported that the council did not have a five-year housing land supply as required by the government.  Therefore, the council had to approve an interim housing supply policy to ensure it had enough housing land to achieve a five-year supply; there was no alternative.  Without such a policy, the council would be vulnerable to planning by appeal.  Therefore, he had approved a draft policy for consultation.  The consultation results were now available for Cabinet to consider.  He noted that most comments were on the suitability of housing sites suggested by land owners, not on the suitability of the policy.  The consultation results would allow the officers to carry out a detailed analysis of possible housing sites under this policy and to inform district councillors and the parish councils of the substantive issues. 

Other Cabinet members supported this approach.  Compared with other areas, the district had relatively low unemployment.  This caused problems for employers to find skilled staff.  The underlying cause was the lack of affordable housing to allow people to move to or for local families to stay in this area.  Cabinet was assured that the interim policy approach was lawful and at every step the officers would ensure the council was operating lawfully. 

Cabinet considered the responses, the statements made at the meeting, and the officers’ recommendations, and agreed that the council should:

(a)               progress the interim housing supply policy, with amendments, and report it in final form to full council on 16 May 2012 for formal adoption;

(b)               retain the interim housing supply policy presumption against bringing forward (in whole or part) preferred or alternative core strategy strategic housing sites being considered through the core strategy process, except as a last resort where and if necessary to achieve the interim housing supply policy housing supply objective, this to be established through the site screening process;

(c)               clarify that the primary role of the proportionate growth guideline would help manage the scale of development in individual settlements, especially in the ‘smaller’ and ‘other’ villages where it should not be significantly exceeded.  Realisation of the proportionate growth guideline should be subject to the availability (or provision e.g. by the developer) of sufficient local infrastructure capacity and services, and that adequate demonstration of this a requirement at planning application stage;

(d)               reiterate and cross reference the updated interim housing supply policy to local plan policy guidelines on provision of infrastructure, housing mix, including affordable housing, and community benefits;

(e)               confirm that the interim housing supply policy might be withdrawn early or amended if (1) the target number of 1,000 homes is reached, (2) the core strategy is adopted and its housing sites are in place, or (3) there is a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.

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