South Warwickshire Local Plan Housing Update

Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Warwick District Council are working together to prepare a Local Plan for the South Warwickshire area.

At the Joint Cabinet / Executive Committee meeting that took place at the beginning of August, both Councils endorsed a study which set out that 1,679 dwellings per annum should be delivered to meet the area's future housing needs in the next version of the emerging Local Plan.

All Local Authorities are required by law to prepare a Local Plan for their respective areas, setting out which areas should be developed, and which areas should be protected for at least the next 15 years.   

As part of the plan preparation process, this meeting focussed on the recommendations of a study called a Housing and Economic Needs Assessment (HEDNA) prepared by independent consultants, ICENI.

The key headline from the HEDNA study work is that it was no longer considered credible to continue to use outdated lower housing provision figures provided by the national government's Standard Methodology (published in 2018). This was due to housing moratorium policies being lifted after 2014 and more up-to-date Census data from 2021 becoming available.

The endorsed figure of 1,679 per annum will now be used as the basis for the next version of the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan, known as the Preferred Options, which will be consulted upon with the public in the coming months.

It was also recognised at the meeting that earlier in the week, the new Government had launched a public consultation on a series of major changes to the planning system which if implemented would substantially impact on the South Warwickshire Local Plan.

This includes a new 'standard method' which would require very many more homes to be built across South Warwickshire to meet local needs than is currently contained within the HEDNA, which is some 2,178 homes per year, almost a 30% increase on the endorsed figures.

Consequently, Members of the committee recognised there will be a need for flexibility to potentially accommodate the new 'standard method' in the preferred options version of the plan and that further versions of the plan, as it is taken forward to adoption, will need to reflect on the outcome of the Government's public consultation, which concludes on 24 September.