Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies

Memorandum from Save the Countryside, Cheltenham (ARSS 21)

Summary

We have considered the first topic,

· the implications of the abolition of regional house building targets for levels of housing development,

with particular reference to the Cheltenham area.

We conclude that the revocation of the draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy has given our local community the welcome opportunity to set local housing targets according to need and in sustainable locations which will enhance our towns and villages and cause least damage to the countryside.

Our campaign group

Save the Countryside is based in Cheltenham and is a member of Save Our Green Spaces, a south-west-wide affiliation of 40 or so groups with a main aim of preserving Green Belt, Greenfield sites and farmland from being paved over by unnecessary built development.

Effects of revocation of draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy

1 Loss of certainty

We acknowledge that the revocation of the draft South West Regional Strategy and of its predecessor, RPG 10, has removed future certainty about housing numbers and allocations.

Our campaign group Save the Countryside was nevertheless relieved when the draft South West Regional Strategy was revoked as it meant that the unreasonable housing targets that had been imposed via the RSS by the previous Government would cease to have any weight in deciding housing allocations.

2 Removal of potential deleterious effects of draft SWRRSS housing targets on Cheltenham and its Green Belt: proposed North West Urban Extension

2.1 Our particular concern was the potential deleterious effect of the draft RSS requirement for a square mile of mixed development, a so-say ‘sustainable urban extension’ (we would say, ‘urban sprawl’) in a Green Belt ‘Area of Search’ north west of Cheltenham, comprising 5000 houses on the Cheltenham / Tewkesbury Borough border, bringing in say 15,000 new residents, 10,000 of them likely to seek employment in our historic Regency town of only 120,000 population.

2.2 This is all in the context of

· some of our main businesses currently leaving Cheltenham,

· when nationally we are trying to ensure that people do not have to travel out for work by car,

· when the new residents might own say 7,500 cars debouching on to an already at-capacity road system at rush hour, and

· when our existing infrastructure and services could not meet this increase in population and traffic without crippling investment.

2.3 Not to mention a square mile of agricultural Grade 2 smallholdings and Grade 3A farmland being lost to development at a time when national food security is at last being recognised as a vital necessity.

2.4 There were also the areas of search and housing numbers added unjustifiably in our area in Gloucestershire by the RSS ‘Panel’ without the proper EC environmental studies. Once again these additions were on Greenfield / Green Belt sites, at Leckhampton (1300 houses) and Bishops Cleeve (1000 houses), just, we believe, to make up pro rata the 3,000,000 houses desired by the last Prime Minister.

3 Questioning of NEED for bulk new build housing

3.1 We have all along questioned the NEED for this number of houses which appears to have been based on a ridiculous 20-year growth forecast of 3.2% per annum and on sweeping Central Government statistics rather than on local population trends and job forecasts.

3.2 We also query the ‘waiting list’ figures which we think are currently being used to frighten us into more new-build development: we should like to recommend that all Local Authorities should state EXACTLY how many people on each waiting list ARE in need and cannot be accommodated in existing housing stock, and how many are already in adequate accommodation but have put themselves on the list hoping from something better from their Local Authority.

3.3 There are better ways of providing houses for those in need than allowing 70% of unneeded open market houses to be built to fund the 30% of new build ‘affordable’ homes which MAY prove to be needed.

3.4 We have also noted that there are currently more houses for sale nationwide than there is demand for them. We suspect members of the Committee will be aware like us of their local newspaper’s pages and pages of properties each week, for sale or to let, at ‘affordable’ prices or to meet the needs of wealthier people – without imposing more new build on Greenfield or Green Belt sites.

3.5 We note too that in our area, and countrywide, there are significant numbers of homes empty for the last six months or longer which could be brought back into use, using Local Authority powers if necessary, before any more of our countryside and food producing land is lost to construction.

3.6 We are aware of our construction industry being the biggest in Europe, the second biggest employer in England and also a big net contributor to GDP.

Nevertheless we think this circumstance should not lead the Government or Local Authorities blindly to permit unnecessary new build open market housing schemes just to support the industry, whose skills ought better to be applied to refurbishing and ’greening’ our existing housing stock or to ‘Obama’ style infrastructure projects during this time of recession.

4 Post-RSS opportunity for genuinely sustainable rates of house building

Our Districts, Cheltenham Borough Council, together with Gloucester City and Tewkesbury Borough Council, are at the moment engaged in preparing a Joint Core Strategy and have conducted various public consultations. We feel that now these Local Authorities, under the aegis of the Coalition’s Localism and Decentralisation proposals, will be able to listen to their communities’ wishes in designing the future of the area including housing provision as, and where, NEEDED - for instance to ensure the viability of the rural villages ignored by the SWRSS.

5 Conclusion

The revocation of the draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy although admittedly a blow to volume housebuilders, has given our local community a breathing space in which to set local housing targets in sustainable locations which will actually enhance our towns and villages and cause least damage to the countryside.

Recommendations

· We recommend that a fresh assessment of genuine housing NEED and availability of existing housing stock (both social and private) is carried out by each Local Authority, taking into account the points we raise under 3 (Questioning of need for new-build housing). This will prove where there is genuine NEED for bulk new build housing.

· We realise at this time of cutback a new Government initiative is unlikely, but we see that it would be valuable to redirect the construction force either on to bringing existing housing stock up to current energy efficient standards or on to upgrading elderly infrastructure.

September 2010