Question
When are you planning to restart the Local Plan Update Committee, since Grazeley is non-viable without the DCLG funding according to a statement by the Housing Executive at an Executive Committee Meeting and most other sources are not available due to the spending on the Pandemic?
Minutes:
Question
When are you planning to restart the Local Plan Update Committee, since Grazeley is non-viable without the DCLG funding according to a statement by the Housing Executive at an Executive Committee Meeting and most other sources are not available due to the spending on the pandemic?
Answer
As part of the Local Plan process update we commissioned growth scenarios and I will send you the link. I am sure you know where they are but I will send you the link.
In particular we considered viability on page 103. More detailed analysis of Grazeley and the scenarios also indicated that for both the 10,000 and 15,000 unit tests the initial phases indicated a loss, largely due to the timing of investment needed in the upfront utilities infrastructure.
The next point was in 7.10 of page 103. Both these outcomes indicated a strong case for early investment to secure housing delivery. This highlights the importance of the contribution to the HIF, which is the Housing Infrastructure Fund, in securing the planning and the delivery of new homes.
Grazeley is therefore not an unviable proposition; rather that it is a heavily forwarded funding burden which would have been lifted if we were successful in the Housing Infrastructure Fund and the bid that we put in.
In reply to our bid on 10 March 2019 MHCLG commented that: -
“Wokingham’s bid was an ambitious proposal in an area of high housing demand. However, following due diligence, the bid was found to not meet the gateway criteria, specifically on demonstrating sufficient market failure to require capital investment from the Government. Most of the infrastructure could be funded by other means if for example, it was progressively delivered with the build out of the development, or using loan finance.”
In essence, the Government’s review has confirmed the viability of Grazeley but suggests a different delivery model to that which was selected and supporting our preferred option. In their reply MHCLG drew attention to the proposed Single Housing Infrastructure Fund as a potential supporting mechanism for us. Full details of that have yet to be announced.
We therefore are considering these options and the factors as well as the responses we received to the consultation. As soon as we have a clear picture the Planning and Transport Policy Member Working Group will resume and I am sure you will be part of that as you were before.
Supplementary Question
MHCLG is also proposing that the OAN, better known as the housing numbers we are required to build, will be changed in late Autumn. We do not seem to know whether it will be raised or lowered. Considering that the Government has said that they want to raise the number of houses built throughout the country how will we take this into account when we are doing the Local Plan Update?
Supplementary Answer
That is a very good question and I can assure you that the team of all Members that you will know have had constant conversations with MHCLG. Also we will be testing because if they do come back to us with a higher number, as you know before in our due diligence in using a well-known barrister and a demographer, we will be testing anything they put forward to us to make sure that it works for us and not just for Government.