After representing clients at the Havant Local Plan examination hearings last summer, Chapman Lily Planning has been keeping close watch on progress. The appointed inspectors wrote to the Council in the autumn expressing concerns about the soundness of the plan and recommended withdrawing it. In a report issued to this week’s Planning Policy Committee, officers have recommended to councillors to do just that. Commenting on this news, Steve Tapscott, Associate Director at Chapman Lily, said ‘this must be extremely disappointing for the Council, to abort a process that commenced in 2016. The inspectors’ concerns related to the strength of the evidence base, which cannot be remedied quickly, hence why they were left with no alternative but to recommend withdrawal. The decision will have serious ramifications for the five-year housing land supply, which already sits at 3.9 years, as well as the Council failing the Housing Delivery Test two years running. There is thus a very real threat of speculative applications for unallocated sites in and around the borough. The solution tabled to the Planning Policy Committee is to reintroduce a Housing Delivery Position Statement to set out the circumstances where additional sites will be able to come forward. This was a successful strategy previously deployed by the Council back in 2016, when it needed to quickly boost housing land supply at that time. On the face of it, this seems sensible under the circumstances, but it clearly does not come close to the comfort of a sound, adopted local plan that gives certainty to the community and the development industry. I note that a further announcement is expected on 3rd March 2022 and we will keep our clients up-to-date as things progress’.
If you would like to know more, feel free to contact Chapman Lily Planning.