A collapsed housing plan for the west of England is a “lost opportunity to shape the region’s future”, according to the metro mayor.
Last month talks collapsed over a masterplan for where tens of thousands of new houses should be built across Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset. The spatial development strategy (SDS) would have held huge sway over new developments.
But council leaders in the region and the West of England metro mayor Dan Norris failed to agree how many homes should be built in each council area. Mr Norris said the three councils would now instead revert back to using “parochial” local plans for future housing.
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Speaking at a scrutiny committee at the West of England combined authority, he said: “I think we have lost a great opportunity. We shouldn’t be looking at it on a parochial basis of each council level, we should be shaping our region. If we can’t get something as fundamental as an agreement on numbers, there’s nothing to discuss. That’s a key and central part of it. We’ve missed the government deadline.”
This is the second attempt at drawing up a regional housing masterplan. The aim is to balance how many new homes are built across the region, taking into account the many commuters who live in one council area and work in another. The first attempt, called a joint spatial plan, collapsed after inspectors rejected it as not “robust, consistent or objective”. This time the failure centred on how many homes should be built in South Gloucestershire.
Mr Norris said: “The joint spatial plan was bad for us because it looked like we couldn’t handle it, we were disjointed, and I’m anxious not to give a message like that again. We’re really close to an agreement this time, but one party, South Gloucestershire, didn’t agree on a number.
“My office has provided the evidence and came up with a figure that I can justify. I can show a paper trail, I can show all of the proceedings. The fact that one of our councils doesn’t agree with that is not something I can do anything about. So we’re kind of stuck. We need to have the numbers, because unless you can agree on the numbers then there’s no other work to follow on.”
South Gloucestershire Council leader Toby Savage previously criticised the masterplan, which would have seen 37,000 new homes built in the council area. He said he had not seen the evidence from the combined authority that these figures were needed, nor workable.
Without an agreed spatial development strategy, each of the three councils would revert back to using local plans to decide where major housing developments should be built over the next few years. Local plans identify how many new homes should be built, and where major new development should take place—but only within specific council boundaries.
The metro mayor added: “That’s what happens across the rest of the country anyway. We have this unusual situation where our combined authority is responsible for an SDS, but I think we’re the only combined authority which is. All the other combined authorities are local plan based. So we’re not disadvantaged particularly by the SDS not proceeding.”
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