Council presses Government to revisit housing figures it says ignore planning constraints

In a letter to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, council leader Mike Evemy described the Cotswolds as "among the most challenged local planning authorities in the country" due to the Cotswold National Landscape and infrastructure pressures.

The correspondence comes as the district council is about to launch a consultation on local plan proposals, with the council's preferred approach committing to 14,660 new homes in the area.

This falls short of the Government set target, which says the council must to plan for 1,036 new homes per year over the next 18 years, which amounts to around 19,000 dwellings.

The district council complained in July about the targets in an earlier letter sent to the then Secretary of State Angela Rayner. But Cllr Evemy said the Government's response "failed to address the critical point around genuine development constraint".

He wrote: "The Cotswold district is among the most challenged local planning authorities in the country when it comes to identifying appropriate and sustainable sites for large-scale development, particularly outside of those areas with National Park Authority designations. Up to now, this fact has been ignored by the government.

"There are two big issues here: one is the potential for developers to capitalise on the fact new housing targets weaken the council’s ability to refuse development that doesn’t bring with it the necessary supporting infrastructure.

“And the second is the enormous number of homes we’re expected to plan for, in small and concentrated parts of the district. Asking a local authority which has 80 per cent of its land within the strictly protected National Landscape – along with other significant infrastructure constraints – to plan for almost 19,000 new homes over the next 18 years is, by any measure, totally unrealistic."

Cllr Evemy also raised concern about the potential for developers to capitalise on the fact new housing targets weaken the council’s ability to refuse development that doesn’t bring with it the necessary supporting infrastructure.

Adam Carey