Please find below questions we have received relating to the Housing section of the Dorset Council Local Plan options consultation, along with answers given.

Housing methodology

How were the housing quantities calculated?

Answer

The Housing target is established through the Government’s Standard Methodology which Councils are required to follow “unless exceptional circumstances justify an alternative approach which reflects which also reflects current and future demographic trends and market signals.” The standard method is set out in the national planning practice guidance.

Question

How are extant permissions for housing factored in to the methodology?

Answer

The methodology uses household projections and affordability ratios for Dorset to arrive at a minimum requirement for the local plan for the period (2021 to 2038). When establishing how many new sites need to be allocated to meet this need, sites that already have planning consent can be counted against the target as can any homes that get built after the 1 April 2021 start date. We also include sites that are allocated for development and an estimate of the homes that can be built on suitable brownfield sites and other sites within the existing settlements. This however leaves a shortfall against the target which is addressed through the allocation of new sites. It is the strategy for locating these sites and the sites themselves that we are wanting feedback on as part of this consultation.

Question

How do you think the government’s proposed planning reforms might affect your Local Plan preparation, given how advanced you are in the process? And are you able to have any influence on the government’s method of determining housing allocations and will their new method alter how you allocate within the county?

Answer

The chief planner Joanna Averley told an event hosted by CPRE in January 2021 that the Government intends to bring forward a planning bill before the end of 2021 to deliver its reforms, but that it would be a ‘couple of years’ before the system was in place. Dorset Council will need to keep the situation under review. It is hoped to submit the Local Plan for examination before the new reforms are in place and usually the Government puts in place transitional arrangements to enable submitted plans to proceed to adoption. The Government consults on planning reforms and Dorset Council, along with many other local authorities, regularly responds to such consultations. In December 2020 the Government published the results of its consultation on the calculation of ‘local housing need’ and published the indicative local housing need figures for each district based on the revised standard methodology. The level of housing provision proposed in the draft Dorset Council Local Plan would enable the revised figure for local housing need in Dorset to be met. The White Paper published in August 2020 put forward some more wide-ranging reforms, including a ‘zonal’ approach to planning, with the identification of ‘growth areas’. At the current time, it is not known whether these reforms will be taken forward in this or another form, so the Council will need to keep this under review.  

Question

What considerations have been given to reducing the housing numbers set for Dorset by central government given the environmental constraints and designations of both the Green Belt and the AONB(s) in Dorset?

Answer

National policy states that the Government’s standard methodology should be used to calculate housing needs, unless exceptional circumstances justify an alternative approach which also reflects current and future demographic trends and market signals. We are required to meet the needs of all sectors of the market and not just those of local residents. The high level of constraints around Dorset do restrict development opportunities however at the current time, it is not considered that the level of constraints, when applying national policy, would demonstrate the exceptional circumstances needed to satisfy the test in national policy. Even where exceptional circumstances exist, the approach proposed must reflect current and future demographic trends and market signals. The proposals in the consultation document identify a supply of homes that will meet the requirement established by the Government’s standard methodology whilst also enabling flexibility to respond to changes in the housing requirements, to respond to the consultation and to respond to the delivery of sites during the plan period.

Question

How has the Dorset Council used the report from Dorset CPRE produced by Opinion Research Services in the development of the emerging Dorset Plan?

Answer

The report produced by Opinion Research Services has been reviewed by officers and some councillors. However as set out in national policy the standard methodology should be used to calculate housing needs, unless exceptional circumstances justify an alternative approach which also reflects current and future demographic trends and market signals. At this stage, the council is not of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances that warrant an alternative approach for the Dorset Council area however the Council will be considering the responses received on this matter as part of the consultation.

Second homes

Question   

In general, can Dorset Council be more ambitious in what it expects or is it constrained by current planning regulations? Could, for example, a restriction on the number of second homes be added in areas affected?

Answer

All Councils are constrained by current planning regulations as they are the legal framework in which we operate. In relation to second homes, as an example, there is only so much that planning can do to lessen any potential negative impacts. One option would be to implement a Primary Residence policy like that proposed in the Purbeck Local Plan 2018-2034, but this would only apply to new development and a lot of our second homes tend to be older, chocolate box type properties. The unintended consequence of such a policy could place more burden on our older properties merely displacing the problem. It is also a very difficult policy to enforce as we would need to monitor who lives in every new build property. This is not only onerous, but also not necessarily accurate, for instance, the resident could be registered at a local doctors surgery but still not actually live in the property as a their primary residence. Having said this, the Council are asking people, as part of this consultation, what you would like us to do about second home ownership in Dorset whilst trying to make people aware of the limitations of such a policy.

Affordable housing 

Question

In the context of the Local Plan, what is the anticipated average salary for employment in the Dorchester area and how is that being aligned with affordable housing targets?

Answer

The annual average salary for employment in West Dorset is £20,782 based on where people work. You can find this data on the Government website (See table 7.7a: Annual pay – Gross (£) for all employee jobs for details). We use this data as it is the lowest geographical level possible to enable accurate assumptions to be made.

We have carried out broad assessments of the need for affordable housing based on the ratio of housing costs to earnings and this has helped inform how we suggest to split the council into zones, each having a different policy requiring for the percentages of affordable housing on development sites. We have also undertaken some analysis of our need for the tenure of affordable housing. This work looked into what Dorset residents could afford compared to the costs to either purchase or rent homes in the Dorset Council area. It showed that although some residents could afford to purchase homes, there are a proportion who cannot. The needs of this group are met through affordable rental products including social rental homes. The proposals are in Chapter 4 of the plan.

For the Dorchester area, affordable housing would be sought on sites of 10 or more homes. We are proposing to require between 30% and 40% of the homes to fall within the affordable housing definition. Of those, we would expect 30% to be provided as affordable home ownership, 40% to be provided as affordable rentals and 30% to be provided as social rented housing.

We have commissioned experts to delve further into this topic. Once this work is complete, it will be published and we will adjust our proposals accordingly also taking into account the comments received as part of this consultation.

Question

We have seen developers get away with providing less affordable housing than is required by the Plan, why is this?  

Answer

The adopted Plan will set out a list of requirements each development must provide. Sometimes these costs can end up rendering a scheme unviable. This means it would not make any profit and therefore would not be built and would not give us the much needed housing to meet Government targets and for our Dorset residents over the plan period.  

National Policy dictates that each application can challenge requirements set out in a local plan via a viability assessment. We do have to be mindful of each individual site as they vary so widely. Some do have considerable costs associated with them such as particularly difficult biodiversity mitigation or flood risk management. If this is the case we firstly need to be convinced of any challenge to our requirement set out in the plan and so we require an independent District Valuer to check over any challenge. If the district Valuer agrees that the site is challenging in viability terms, we negotiate with developers to obtain the most affordable housing we can. 

Question

The Plan seems to provide fewer affordable homes outside of urban areas, why is this?

Answer

The plan proposals maximise the potential affordable housing in all locations where there are proposals for development of 10 or more homes around the Dorset Council Local Plan area, and 5-9 homes would need to provide a contribution where they are situated in designated rural areas. As we are proposing growth at our Tier 1 and Tier 2 settlements we would expect to also see affordable housing on proposed sites. These would be located in our more sustainable locations and reduce the need for residents to travel out of their immediate area.

Strategic housing market assessment (SHMA)

Question

The SHMA produced for the Purbeck Local Plan was excellent.  Why have you not done/commissioned a similar document?

Answer

A SHMA is a strategic housing market assessment which looks at what type of housing we need in the area. For instance what size our houses should be and what type of housing we need for our aging population. Our current proposals are based on the initial research we have done however a more detailed analysis of the needs of these specific groups is currently being produced which will be published later in the year when it’s complete. This piece of work is being undertaken by experts in their field and we will amend our proposals to reflect the outputs of this study and the results of this consultation.

Housing Mix

Question

Is it possible to state the density of dwellings per hectare, e.g. expected size of gardens, and specify the types of dwellings, e.g. no flats in the local plan for a community? This is asked because developers are building at too high a density for rural areas and are seeking to impose their ‘standard designs’ and associated national costs on new developments.

Answer

It is possible to require a certain density, types of dwellings and number of bedrooms. To be this specific can be a hindrance as times change so do our needs and these differ again from place to place. Instead it is possibly better to ask for the right type of dwellings and right density for each specific development. Section 4: Housing in the plan gives our proposals for housing mix which you may wish to read and give feedback on.  We have commissioned a detailed evidence study which will give us expert advice on how to manage our housing mix and this will help develop our policy further before the final draft of the plan.