Stopping housing development in Gloucestershire will now be extremely difficult for one council after it lost its third planning appeal in a row.
Tewkesbury Borough Council chiefs have now officially conceded that they do not have a five year housing land supply.
This is a calculation of whether there is a deliverable supply of homes to meet the planned housing need for an area over the next five years.
Tewkesbury’s supply is currently at 3.3 years and it means the bar will be set much higher for its planning committee if it wishes to reject a housing scheme without good enough reasons.
Council leader Richard Stanley (LD, Cleeve West) says the current planning system is stacked against local authorities.
He would like to see it reformed but they have to face the situation. He says they can’t continue fighting and losing appeals as the bill has already topped £500,000.
“The situation that we’ve come into is the council is now on its third planning appeal in a row where it has been told it doesn’t have a five year housing land supply.
“We’ve got to face that now. We can’t continue on saying we’ve got a five year housing land supply, keep fighting and losing appeals.
“We are very clear we accept we don’t have the five year housing supply and it’s now about the work we can do to do what we can. That bar is now set that much higher in terms of what the planning committee at the council can refuse.
“If it tries to refuse on grounds which would have probably stood up with a five year supply but won’t without one we’ll end up in a situation where the council continues to lose appeal and have significant costs against it for being unreasonable.
“The whole system makes it very difficult for councils.
“We are looking at over half a million pounds spent on fighting these appeals. They don’t come cheap.
“That has to stop. We can’t continue to do that.”
Cllr Stanley says he feels the current system doesn’t work for anyone. He said there is no shortage of plans being approved but the right homes are not being built.
“We’ve got the worst of both worlds. It’s not helping young people get on the housing ladder, we are not building social rented homes and the development industry controls the supply of homes.
“Our five year housing land supply, the rate at which that is built out is controlled by developers. If they build that slowly enough that we don’t meet our housing land supply target they then get to build in areas where they haven’t yet got planning permission.
“It does feel like the system is stacked against local authorities, residents and communities.”
In November, the council will discuss a paper which will set out its position statement about what they expect from the development industry.
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Original post on the Gloucestershire News Centre website
Gloucestershire News Centre