Shropshire first with new approach to affordable housing
Shropshire Council is set to be at the forefront of innovation in planning and housing, when a new planning policy document is adopted following a 12-week consultation.
The Supplementary Planning Document on the Type and Affordability of Housing aims to ensure the provision of more good-quality, affordable housing in Shropshire in the period to 2026, to meet growing demand from local people.
It provides additional policy guidance to supplement the housing policies contained within Shropshire Council’s new Core Strategy.
The document takes an innovative approach that allows a balance between maximising the number of affordable houses being built locally, whilst ensuring that housing developments are economically viable. This balance will be readjusted each year, according to local market conditions.
Shropshire Council is the first in the country to include this ‘dynamic viability’ in its planning policies.
A recent report on the council’s Core Strategy from the national Planning Inspectorate fully supported this pioneering approach as “soundly-based, transparent and consistent”.
A report to the council’s Cabinet meeting on 16 March 2011 recommends that the Supplementary Planning Document is adopted, and that it becomes operational on 31 March 2011 – alongside the new Core Strategy.
The document will help to deliver Objective 5 of the Core Strategy – ie “to provide for a mix of good quality, sustainable housing development of the right size, type, tenure and affordability to meet the housing needs and aspirations of all sections of the community, including provision for specialist needs and the elderly.”
A consultation on the draft document ended on 14 February 2011. More than 85 responses were received and these helped to refine the final policy document.
Councillor Mal Price, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for housing and planning, said: “We have listened carefully to what local people told us during the consultation and their comments are reflected in the final version of the document. The SPD recognises the problems many local people face in securing good quality, affordable homes for themselves or their family members.
“The council’s ground-breaking planning policies take a positive approach, making it easier to build affordable housing, and trying to ensure that all new housing development in Shropshire contributes to meeting local needs.”
The SPD will replace the Interim Planning Guidance on affordable housing that was adopted by Shropshire Council in July 2009, Bridgnorth District Council’s ‘affordable housing SPD’ (2007); Oswestry Borough Council’s ‘interim planning guidance: affordable housing’ (2008); and South Shropshire District Council’s ‘affordable housing solutions guidance’ (2007).
