DCLG: 3% growth rate for traveller needs "not part of national planning policy"

Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis has this week stressed that the application of an annual growth rate figure of 3% for assessment of Traveller accommodation needs does not represent national planning policy.

The comments came in a response to a letter from Cllr Mike Jones, chairman of the Local Government Association’s Environment and Housing Board.

Cllr Jones had sought – following a recent appeal decision and an inspector’s considerations – to clarify that the assessment of Traveller accommodation needs should be based on local evidence, as opposed to a nationally-defined figure.

In his reply, which can be viewed here, Lewis said he could not comment directly on individual cases. “However,” he added, “I wish to be absolutely clear that the annual growth rate figure of 3% does not represent national planning policy.”

The minister continued: “As you rightly say, our planning policy for traveller sites returns to councils, in consultation with their local communities, the freedom and responsibility to plan to meet their traveller community’s site needs.

“In much the same way as we expect councils to plan to meet the housing needs of their settled community, our policy sets out that local authorities should undertake and update their own assessment of future traveller site need, based on robust evidence.”

Lewis described as “unhelpful” the previous administration’s guidance for local authorities on carrying out Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessments under the Housing Act 2004, “in that it uses an illustrative example of calculating future accommodation need based on the 3% growth rate figure”.

He said: “The guidance notes that the appropriate rate for individual assessments will depend on the details identified in the local authority’s own assessment of need. As such the Government is not endorsing or supporting the 3% growth rate figure, though in some cases we are aware that inspectors have, in considering the level of unmet local need when determining specific traveller appeals, used the 3% growth rate figure in the absence of a local authority’s own up-to-date assessment of need.”

The DCLG minister said he considered the current guidance was in need of updating. He added that the Government would – following the consolidation of planning guidance – seek to consult on updating and streamlining the remaining elements of traveller planning guidance and also on strengthening traveller planning policy.

“We will ensure than any new guidance supports councils to accurately assess their needs and would remove ambiguous references to the 3% growth rate figure, which, I stress, is only illustrative,” Lewis said. “This would, once published, have the effect of cancelling the last Administration’s guidance.”

The minister said the DCLG would raise the issue with the Planning Inspectorate “to re-confirm that planning policy requires local authorities to robustly assess their own needs.”