Agenda item

The following questions were received from Members:

 

1.  Question from Councillor Gibson:

 

In the four years since the Council first published the draft Sites DPD the Residual Housing Need has consistently fallen from the figure of 2,439 in 2017 which prompted the District Plan Inspector to require the Council to prepare the DPD. The latest published figure is 797 (November 2021) and if this trend continues (see Figure), the Residual Housing Need can be projected to decline to zero by summer 2023, even if the DPD is not adopted.

 

 

Is the Leader aware of any reasons why the Residual Housing Need should not be expected to continue to decline as it has done for the past 4 years?

Does the Leader agree that this calls into question the need to adopt the draft Sites DPD?

 

The Leader has recently supported the pausing of the draft District Plan 2021 – 2038 and undertaken to write to the Secretary of State to call for “our housing targets to be reset to a level more consistent with our environmental and infrastructure constraints”.  Does he agree that, for consistency in approach, the same balance needs to be struck for the proposed 1,704 new housing sites in the DPD? and will he support the pausing of the DPD as he has supported the pausing of the draft District Plan 2021 – 2038?

 

The following response was provided by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning

 

The numbers you quote are correct but the difficulty is in the second sentence ‘if this trend continues’. We cannot just extend the downward drift on a graph. One of the issues on how these numbers are absorbed due to permitted development. There is a lot of permitted development going on which are drying up as well as brownfield sites which are drying up too so this is reason for the decline.

 

The residual housing need figure has reduced year on year as sites are allocated in new neighbourhood plans (such as at Handcross and Slaugham Neighbourhood Plan), on brownfield sites, conversions of office to residential and, a number of applications where the yield on the sites have increased which already had planning permission. This figure fluctuates and supply from these sources is finite, therefore it is wholly incorrect to assume that the residual figure will decline as you have illustrated.

 

The correct position regarding how Mid Sussex will continue to meet its housing requirement is set out in the Housing Trajectory included as Appendix C of the Sites DPD Main Modifications. This illustrates the importance of the allocations in the Sites DPD in maintaining supply over the plan period.

 

I disagree with your view that the work on the Sites DPD should be paused, for two clear reasons. 

 

Firstly, as noted above, the allocations in the Sites DPD are important to ensure we maintain housing supply over the plan period. The District Plan Inspector instructed the Council to prepare a Site Allocations DPD to ensure the residual housing need can be met and that the Council can maintain its five-year housing land supply. As you know the five-year housing land supply is a crucial tool in protecting the District from unwanted, speculative, unplanned development. It is therefore essential the Sites DPD is adopted.

 

Secondly, the housing figure is unchallengeable as it has been through a robust public examination and agreed by the Planning Inspector. Those Members who were on the Council as that time will recall that the vast majority of time in the examination was in fact spent arguing and discussing what the need number should be. 

 

It is for these reasons that I will not support the pausing of the DPD. It is important to remember that the plan periods of the current District Plan and updated District Plan overlap. Therefore, current commitments that is sites with planning permission or allocations count towards future housing need. If the Sites DPD is not adopted, not only will it risk the five-year housing land supply in the short-term, it will also increase the number of dwellings that will need to be found in the updated District Plan. There is therefore no benefit to pausing the work on the Sites DPD.

 

In pausing the District Plan Update work, we are seeking to challenge the assumptions and data used by the Government in setting the formula used to determine housing need.

 

Councillor Gibson asked a supplementary question asking clarification on whether the DPD will come back to the Council for approval after the Inspector has reviewed it. The Cabinet Member confirmed that it will come back to Council for adoption.

 

2. Question from Cllr Eves

 

The Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery scheme, Phase 2 (LAD2), is designed to enable local authorities to deliver energy efficiency improvements to low-income households in low-energy-performance homes, which will also reduce carbon emissions and lower bills. The fund closes at the end of March 2022. Of the £300m in the fund, the South-East was allocated £79.6m 

How much of this fund was allocated to this local authority area?

 

How many households successfully applied for grant funding under the scheme?

 

How many household projects i) have been started; ii) have been completed; iii) are expected to successfully access funds?

 

If there is likely to be a significant underspend compared to the allocation, what factors do you consider account for this?   

 

The following response was provided by the Cabinet Member for Environment and Service Delivery

 

Thank you for your questions about this important scheme. 

 

This fund is allocated to upper tier Councils so in this area that is West Sussex County Council, who received £3,270,387. 

 

The scheme is currently in the referrals phase so the information you are requesting is not yet available. This phase will be complete by 31st March with property surveys taking place from late February.  The information you request will not be fully available until July, when it is available, I would of course be happy to share it with you and other members.  

 

I can assure you that every effort is being made to ensure that the funding is fully utilised however the key factor which will impact this will be successful communication of the scheme to residents and their eligibility under the prescribed criteria: 

 

I would like to take the opportunity to remind Council that the eligibility criteria is as follows:?

a.         Maximum combined household income of £30k per year or less.?

b.         Energy Performance Certificate Rating D, E, F and G.?

c.         Have not used the full allocation of Local Authority Delivery Scheme 1.?

 

Please do help us to raise awareness of this important scheme to all our residents.

 

 

3. Question from Councillor?Paul Brown:

 

Councillor Brown revised his question regarding a resident in his Ward that has experienced issues in accessing email alerts informing him of all new planning applications in his Parish, Horsted Keynes. The system works well but periodically it stops working, making it difficult to determine if he has missed applications.

 

Also, instead of receiving the entire District listing of planning applications each week, can a Member, by giving the same notice, automatically receive?just?the planning applications applicable to their Ward??

 

 

The following response was provided by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning.

 

Yes the option to receive automatic notifications is already in place and Officers can help you if you need it. I am surprised that you bring this to a strategic Council meeting. If a resident has an issue and had sent an email to Officers or called Reception, a response could have been provided faster than it being brought to Council.

 

4.   Question from Councillor?Jenny Edwards

 

Has MSDC been approached by Center Parcs to get pre-application advice for their proposed 550-acre development in Worth?

What relevant policies are contained in the current District Plan, and the emerging District Plan to enable decision making for a large recreational site?

 

The following response was provided by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning.

 

The Council has not been approached by Center Parcs for pre-application advice. There has been no formal contact between Centre Parcs and the Council.

 

The District Plan contains a number of Polices which would have to be taken into account when determining applications for large recreational sites including Policy DP12: Protection and Enhancement of the Countryside;  Policy DP14: Sustainable Rural Development and the Rural Economy; DP16 AONB; and DP37: Trees, Woodlands and Hedgerows. 

 

Policies are worded very broadly so you won’t find specifically what we will do with one type site but a number of policies will incorporate some of the aspects which come together to inform us on how we on how we approach such an application where it to come forward.

 

5.   Second Question from Councillor Gibson:

 

Can the Deputy Leader confirm that the Council has received £30M in New Homes Bonus since the grant was introduced in 2011?

 

Has this money been used to support revenue expenditure or spent on capital or strategic projects?  How much of the £30M remains unspent?

 

How has the Council met the Government requirement to “engage with the communities most affected by housing growth to decide how the money is spent, so residents can share in the benefits of growth” when deciding where and on what New Homes Bonus money is spent?

 

I estimate that the Council has received £2M in New Homes Bonus from new developments in Crawley Down.  How much of this money has been spent in Crawley Down and how have residents benefitted?  

 

The following response was provided by the Leader

 

Yes, including the 2022/23 provisional allocation, around £32m will have been received, a very significant level of financial support from the Conservative Government for Mid Sussex and it is elected Members who make decisions on how it is spent and we have continually done so as a Council through the budget setting process as an example.

 

The New Homes Bonus (NHB) is not ringfenced. The Council over many years has decided to use the NHB as part of the general reserve to support the Capital Programme and strategic projects. It is not therefore possible to separate out exact amounts of what has and hasn’t been spent. As a result the Mid Sussex community as a whole has benefitted from this funding. To give some examples, the Capital Programme is used to support for investment in community facilities, significant investment in temporary accommodation buying homes to support people who are most in need. The Council has also prudently used the funds to purchase income generating assets to support the budget that funds the services that residents expect and receive and most lately using the reserve position to support the leisure centres to ensure communities across the District can use the centres as they expect to do and this is a multi-million pound commitment from the Council.

 

Councillor Gibson’s supplementary question focused on the residents on Crawley Down who do not feel that the £2m has been spent in ways that they would have wished. He asked if the Council has used Crawley Down as a cash cow in terms of generating funds.

 

The Leader disagreed, noting it is wrong to suggest that residents do not value the Council spending money on things such as community facilities and temporary accommodation for people who are homeless and ensuring we are generating income to keep leisure centres open and to support residents with services they require.