Transcript

Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the individual Cabinet member decision-making for planning held today on Monday, the 10th of June. Let's go to the agenda. Item one in the agenda, declarations of interest. All members present are required to declare at this point in the meeting, or as soon as possible thereafter, any disclosable pecuniary interests and/or other interests arising under the code of conduct in respect of any of the business being considered at this meeting. Do I have any declarations of interest? No? Thank you. Then item two on the agenda is housing delivery test action plan, and can I hand over to the officers, please, to take us through? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor James. Yes, so this item is a housing delivery test action plan for 2024, and the government published its 2022 housing delivery test measurement in December 2023 and gave the local authority six months to produce the action plan. This test measurement showed that the borough had delivered 90 percent of its housing requirement in the preceding three years, so that's for the period 2019-20 to 2021-2022, with 1,474 new homes delivered. As the housing delivery test result is below 95 percent, the borough has prepared a housing delivery test action plan as required by national planning policy. The housing delivery test action plan 2024 has been prepared to show how the council is responding to the pressure of building more homes in Elmbridge. In line with the national planning practice guidance, the action plan identifies reasons for the underdelivery of housing and sets out the measures the council intends to take to try and improve levels of housing delivery in the borough. The following issues are explored in the action plan as causes of underdelivery, and these included the limited land supply and land availability in the borough, the overdelivery of large four-bedroom plus detached dwellings, the low-density development and the character of the area, site-specific issues, and high land values in the borough. The actions put forward in the draft housing delivery test action plan range from short to long-term in their implementation and will be led on by different council services and some through joint working. And these actions detailed in the plan include engaging with developers, agents, and site promoters to obtain further information on the barriers to housing delivery and market conditions, collaborating with registered providers and housing companies to deliver more affordable homes in the borough, continuing to use our planning performance agreements, to adopt an up-to-date local plan for the borough, to progress the property and placemaking delivery strategy, and to develop and implement a new housing and homelessness strategy to address the housing challenges our communities face. Overall, the action plan sets out how the council is fully committed to working proactively and utilizing the full range of tools and processes at its disposals to boost the delivery of new homes in the borough.

Thank you very much. The recommendation is that the portfolio holdup for planning, i.e., me, agrees that the housing and delivery action plan 2024 for publication on the council's website following a two-week call-in period. And I'm happy with that recommendation. Okay. Are you happy with that? I don't need to do anything else. No. Okay. Well, thank you very much, everybody. I declare the meeting closed at 11.34. Many thanks.