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Councils call for housing delivery test suspension as nitrate crisis ‘severely reduces’ development
A group of 12 local authorities in Hampshire has called on the government to halt tests for measuring whether they are delivering enough homes, over fears they will miss targets due to ongoing issues surrounding nitrate pollution.
In a letter sent to housing minister Esther McVey, Seán Woodward, chair of Partnership for South Hampshire (PfSH), said it was “untenable” to expect PfSH’s members would meet housing delivery targets, due to the “severely reduced” number of planning applications being granted because of nitrate pollution concerns in the area.
In June, a number of local authorities in Hampshire accepted an advice note from Natural England which said planning permission should only be granted to new developments that are nitrate neutral.
The advice followed fears that high levels of nitrogen from housing and agriculture has led to excessive growth of green algae in the Solent, causing harm to protected wildlife.
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An analysis by PfSH found that 4,542 dwellings are currently held up in planning awaiting consent solely or principally because of the issue of nitrate neutrality.
A number of local authorities have introduced bespoke, short-term solutions to address the problem, but Mr Woodward said this will not reduce the backlog to a level that will allow affected councils to meet the targets set in the government’s housing delivery test.
The housing delivery test is the government’s annual assessment of whether planning authorities are overseeing the development of enough homes in their area and is calculated as a percentage of homes delivered against the number required over the past three years.
An authority passes the test if they build 95% or more of the homes required, if not there is a sliding scale of consequences based on the delivery gap.
Starting next year, councils that do not achieve 75% of their housing target will face the most severe consequence known as “the presumption in favour of sustained development”. This will meaning a council’s locally agreed planning policies are overridden in favour of national planning rules.
Earlier this year, Inside Housing revealed that 108 councils fell short of achieving the 95% target over the past three years.
However none have yet faced the ‘presumption in favour of sustained development’, as the threshold for this consequence was set lower at 25% until now.
Mr Woodward said that removing the threat of penalties will afford local authorities the time to “focus on working collectively with all interested parties to implement joined-up and focused mitigations”.
