Top lawyer will assess our legal standing to challenge Government
EHDC is taking top level legal advice as part of a challenge to reduce the Government’s housing figures for East Hampshire.
We are hiring a King’s Counsel to look at the district’s unique circumstances and advise on whether a challenge on housing numbers might be successful.
The Government has set district-wide figures of almost 11,000 new homes to be delivered before 2040.
But with more than half of the district inside the South Downs National Park, where development is restricted, there are limited sustainable sites available for new homes.
Housing figures are based on calculations using a standard methodology applied to all planning authorities around the country. But those calculations do not take into account the amount of land taken up by the national park.
Cllr Richard Millard, EHDC Leader, said: “We’re looking closely at whether we can challenge the government’s method of calculating housing figures with a view to reducing our target.
“We believe the fact that 57% of East Hampshire is covered by the South Downs National Park, and so almost off-limits to development, is an exceptional circumstance that should be recognised by the government.
“It’s unfair that the national park gets away scot-free and that the rest of East Hampshire has to take the lion’s share of development. So, it’s only right that we challenge these housing figures.
“That is not going to be popular with the Government but that’s not my concern. I am only interested in what’s right for our residents.”
The impact on the Local Plan
Through our recent consultation residents expressed concerns over the sensitivity of some sites proposed for development in the Local Plan.
If we can reduce the Government’s housing figures, we could potentially reduce the number of sites identified in the Local Plan.
However, we could only do this if we had a strong legal footing. If our Local Plan was rejected it would have very serious consequences for development in the district.
We would have much less control over which sites are developed and it would be harder to bring new infrastructure through with the new homes.
With no Local Plan our sensitive sites could still be built on but with none of the possible benefits - a much worse position to be in.
Our questions to King Counsel
Once the KC’s opinion has been received we can decide how to proceed.
A positive response will mean we could mount a strong challenge to the Government’s figures.
However, if the KC believes such a challenge would fail we must accept that opinion. We would need to be very sure of our legal position before challenging for lower housing figures. To produce a Local Plan that does not meet our housing requirements would be a huge risk.
The questions we have put to KC are:
- 'Is the scope of 'exceptional circumstances' limited to those circumstances relating to the inputs - i.e. to the interpretation of population, household or affordability data - of the standard method; or could it extend to other land-use planning (physical, environmental, administrative) considerations that are relevant to delivering housing needs?'
- What are the legal risks if the Council departs from the standard method?
- The standard method provides a useful starting point for the Local Plan – considering the circumstances of East Hampshire, what evidence could justify deviating from the standard methodology?
- How high is the risk to achieving a sound plan of deviating?
Once we have KC’s response will publish it in full.