P-05-786 Save our Countryside - Revise TAN 1
P-05-786 Save our Countryside - Revise TAN 1
This
petition was submitted by Cllr Mike Priestley, having collected 706 signatures
online.
Petition text:
Changes in 2015 to Technical Advice Note 1 (TAN1)
have resulted in unachievable annual housing targets. This has taken planning
decisions away from the local democratic planning process and undermined
Adopted Local Development Plans (LDPs) across Wales.
We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge
the Welsh Government to reinstate within TAN1 the use of "past building
rates methodology" alongside the "residual methodology". This
will ensure that Councils are able to undertake intelligent and credible housing
land supply needs assessments. Past housing delivery performance reflects
economic conditions and local building industry capacity and resilience.
To ensure credible and deliverable land supply, and
to balance the need for housing with the need to protect our environment and
heritage, it is essential that economic conditions and local building industry
capacity are factored into annual calculations of 5 Year Land Supply for
Housing.
Changes to TAN1 have forced Local Councils to allow
housing developments in excess of what is considered to be local demand. These
developments are often large scale and have a detrimental effect on the green
belt and the heritage of our County as urban and rural areas over expand. This
in turn puts added demands on already stretched services such as GPs,
Hospitals, Social Services and Schools.
The withdrawal in 2015 of the past building rates
methodology is causing increasing numbers of Local Authorities to declare a 5
Year Land Supply shortfall. This, in turn, is forcing Local Councils, against
their will and better judgement, to approve speculative development
applications on locally sensitive Greenfield land, land unallocated within
their LDPs and, where local approval to these speculative applications is not
granted, local democratic decisions are being overturned on appeal,
specifically due to the lack of a 5 Year Land Supply for Housing.
Additional information:
In 2014 Conwy Council had a 7+ Year Land
Supply when its LDP was examined and approved by the Planning Inspector. Less
than 12 months later the changes to TAN 1 reduced Conwy's Land Supply to less
than 5 years. This has reduced with successive annual land supply calculations.
In 2017, Conwy's land supply now stands at 3.1 years as a direct result of the
changes to TAN1, and the Council is receiving speculative development
applications for land unallocated within the LDP despite allocated land being
available. If the past building rates methodology was still permitted, Conwy
would today have an 8.5 year supply.
WG’s guidance document TAN1 tells Local
Councils how to work out their supply of housing land. All Councils should have
enough land to meet the need for 5 years of house building. In the previous
TAN1 there were two methods of working out how much land was needed:
1. The residual method based on the total
housing need from an adopted Plan
2. The past build rates method, using the
house building rates from the last 5 years to project forward for the next 5
years.
The Wellbeing and Future Generations Act
requires us to be balance our decisions and actions in terms of impact today
and impact in the future. Surely, we should apply this thinking to land
planning and land use? Current Welsh Government policy is forcing prime
Greenfield land to be concreted over and forever become brownfield land. The
imposition and restriction to the use of the "residual methodology"
was fiercely contested at the consultation stage and beyond, but Local
Councils' voices were ignored. Local Councils need to be able to:
• protect heritage and environment and
sensitive Greenfield land use and exercise local discretion, judgement and
control of where development is needed and where it is allowed.
Status
This petition was
considered completed by the Petitions Committee at its meeting on 16/03/2021.
The petition was closed
as part of a review of all petitions currently under consideration at the
Petitions Committee's final meeting of the Fifth Senedd, in light of the
upcoming election and the consideration given to this issue to date.
Full details of the
consideration of this petition by the Committee and related documents can be
seen on the Meetings tab above.
It
was first considered by the Petitions Committee on 21/11/2017.
Senedd Constituency and Region
- Aberconwy
- North Wales
- The
Petitions Committee homepage
- View
all open petitions
- View
all petitions the committee is currently considering
- How the petitions
system works
Business type: Petition
Reason considered: Senedd Business;
Status: Complete
First published: 06/11/2017