WESTBURY Town Council will write to Wiltshire Council “in the strongest possible terms” to ask the local authority to find a five-year housing land supply in a bid to stop Westbury being subjected to further housing developments.
Wiltshire Council is required to identify sites for housing developments, and government policy requires them to find a minimum of five years’ supply to ensure housing targets are met. The unitary authority has failed to find five years’ supply. Westbury town councillors were not happy with the latest briefing note from Wiltshire Council which said their supply has increased from 4.56 to 4.72.
At a recent meeting of the highways, planning and development committee of Westbury Town Council, cllr Matt Dean said, “With briefing notes like this, it’s no wonder confidence in local government is so low. They say that everything is fine and that 4.72 is near enough – the reality is that in this town, we have been on the receiving end of their shortcomings and as a result we have had sites like Sandhole Lane pushed through. Even our professional planners have said that the development at Sandhole Lane was completely unsuitable for the town.
“The planning inspector (and this is what this briefing note does not say) sets all of that to one side and says ‘because you haven’t got a five-year land supply, which is a statutory requirement, I’m going to allow the development to happen’. That is happening all over the county.
“I think this council should write in the strongest possible terms to Wiltshire Council, saying we deplore the fact that they have not been able to identify five years. This really is a scandal, bearing in mind we live in one of the biggest rural counties in the country, there’s plenty of land around here. We should tell them that we really do feel that it is vital that they work as a matter of priority to get to five years.
“I actually think this is a resignation issue for people like Nick Botterill, [Wiltshire Council cabinet member for development management, strategic planning and cabinet change] because if you can’t refuse housing applications, what’s the point in having town planning?”
Cllr Mike Sutton, chair of HP&D added, “A cynic would say that it sometimes suits Wiltshire Council to have not met the five year supply because developers then know that they can come straight to West Wiltshire and avoid Marlborough, Salisbury and other more ‘up market’ areas.”
On the five-year land supply briefing note, Wiltshire Council says, “Although the housing land supply is below the five years required by Government, recent housing delivery in Wiltshire remains strong, with the latest Housing Delivery Test indicating the council has met 141% of its housing targets over the past three years. Both measures are factors that can be applied in the decision-making process when planning applications are determined.
“Local planning authorities should identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies, or against their local housing need where the strategic policies are more than five years old.”
Wiltshire Council also say, “A shortfall in housing land supply means that when applications for housing come forward the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ applies in decision-making.”
