Extra homes proposals threaten local plan

Labour's new consultation, which aims to speed up house building, could mean Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick districts need to find 30% more new homes

Big increases in housing targets could disrupt work on a new planning roadmap for parts of Warwickshire, according to officials.

Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick districts could have to find room for 30% more new homes than anticipated.

The areas' district councillors were presented with the figures during an update on the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan (SWLP).

Leading officers from both authorities agreeing that new government proposals threaten to “drive a coach and horses” through the work done so far.

New labour policy

The SWLP will set out how new housing is catered for and plan for where it will go through to 2050, bringing together two areas that do not currently have their own plans.

The plan has been three years in the making already and is not set to be finalised until December 2027, with officers currently in the process of nailing down housing numbers.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council is currently committed to 730 homes per year with Warwick District Council’s at 1,098.

The joint plan has been working towards 868 new homes per year in Stratford district and 811 per year in Warwick district.

However, the new government has launched a consultation on changes to national planning policies, aiming to speed up house-building with a focus on affordable homes.

The new method would be based on current housing stock levels rather than future projections of need in the hope of creating more stable growth across populated areas.

That will drive down the targets for bigger city areas like Coventry and Birmingham but pushes up the figure across the SWLP patch to 2,178 homes per year.

This is 1,098 across Stratford district and 1,080 across Warwick district, which is 499 more than the two councils had been working to.

The government’s consultation on its potential changes to the National Planning Policy Framework concludes on 24 September.

A public consultation is due on the SWLP’s preferred options in November.

Number crunching needed

Stratford’s head of development, John Careford said the council would need to do the "number crunching" to see what was available and what impact the increase in housing would have.

Warwick’s councillors expressed concerns but cast doubt on whether the national proposals will stay as they are.

Councillor Ian Davison, leader of Warwick District Council, said: "It is not definite.

"My personal view is that you could say the Labour party is being brave, they are going from around 200,000 new homes per year to around 350,000.

“If house building genuinely rockets to 350,000 per year the prices will absolutely rocket in terms of construction, technical people and so on.

“Then you need lots of people with lots of money to buy the houses, and we know that developers don’t develop if the house prices and therefore the profits fall.

“I think it is extremely brave. Whether they will carry on like that or not, we don’t know.”

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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