Any statements, petitions, and questions from the public under standing order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.
Minutes:
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 be able to use the normal planning process. She also believed there should be further consultation on the interim policy.
(2) Councillor Richard Webber raised three questions. Although the interim policy was aimed to avoid planning by appeal, did it not allow developers free reign, effectively the same as planning by appeal? Was the council introducing this interim policy as it was waiting for another council to legally test the government’s requirement for a five year housing supply? Would adoption of the interim policy allow every land owner tempted to make a quick profit?
(3) Councillor Dudley Hoddinott expressed concern at the officers’ analysis of the consultation results. He suggested that the analysis had not taken into account that 70 of the 174 responses were from developers who would naturally want development policies relaxed. By removing these developer responses, the analysis would have shown a different outcome. He asked if the officers would remove the developer responses from their analysis before carrying out detailed site screening so that local plan policies were relaxed as little as possible? He also asked that, with 2,000 people in the district on the housing list, how would the council ensure that the maximum number of affordable houses were contained with the 1,000 home interim housing supply policy objective?
(4) Councillor Sue Marchant spoke as a district councillor for Grove and as a Grove resident. She questioned why the council had allocated more housing land at Monks Farm north of Grove when there was already large-scale planned development at Grove airfield? She believed Monks Farm was the most inappropriate site for housing. If the site had to be developed, it would be better if it were for employment use.
(5) Councillor Jim Halliday asked the Cabinet member for planning if he was aware of other councils operating interim housing supply policies? Had the council sought counsel’s opinion to ensure that this approach was watertight in matters such as protecting the Green Belt and the emerging core strategy? If the Cabinet member was unsure other councils had such a policy, would he instruct the officers to research examples elsewhere and take a legal opinion?
In response to some of the points raised, the chairman reported that there appeared to be some confusion between the core strategy and interim housing supply policy. The draft core strategy had been approved for consultation by the Cabinet on 9 March and it would consider the consultation responses later in the year. Cabinet would now look at the results of the interim housing supply policy consultation results.