The Inspector’s Role

Locally produced evidence is more important than before and therefore the Inspector’s role in development plan examinations is crucial.

The Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) Core Strategy was considered at Examination in June 2012. Shortly after, the Inspector published his preliminary conclusions, which raised a number of concerns over the soundness and the scale of the housing proposed.

The Council has since commissioned new evidence on housing need and will shortly publish for consultation a revised Core Strategy incorporating a number of additional sites for development, including land currently within the Green Belt.

Nick Matthews (Director, Bristol) comments: “It was no surprise the Inspector came down very hard on the Council given the nature of the objections received to the submission Core Strategy. An increase in housing delivery is essential to meet the housing needs of the area and development in the Green Belt was an inevitable consequence”.

East Hampshire District recently suspended the Examination into their joint Core Strategy (prepared with the South Downs National Park). The preliminary findings of the East Hampshire Inspector were telling: “The Authority’s assertion that environmental constraints prevent them from meeting the objectively assessed need is not supported by any analysis of the impact of higher levels of growth. Nor have the Authorities discussed meeting any un-met need with their neighbours”.

Charles Collins (Associate Director, Southampton) comments: “It can be seen that the removal of the Regional Plan and hence reliance by LAs for this to set a housing requirement, will likely cause additional work for local plan making, to ensure that their evidence is not only up to date, but robust. It will be important in assessing the actual need that both demographic and employment factors are taken account of”.

Green Belt Reviews

It is more likely LAs with Green Belt land will have to undertake a Green Belt review in order to demonstrate they have robustly assessed whether the identified housing needs can be accommodated. Some LAs contemplating Green Belt review are shown on Map 3. The NPPF is clear that, once set (possibly after review), Green Belts should endure beyond the plan period.

Taken from
Spotlight: National Planning Policy Framework - One Year On