The EiP Panel's recommendations which affect Hampshire

These pages summarise the Panel's recommendations which affect Hampshire.

Overall Strategy of the South East Plan

The draft Plan focuses most development in the areas defined as sub-regions. These contain the main agglomerations of urban areas. Two sub-regions cover parts of Hampshire: the South Hampshire Sub-region and the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley Sub-region which includes north Hampshire. The areas outside the sub-regions are called 'Rest of County' areas in the draft Plan. Here in Hampshire, the 'Rest of Hampshire' is referred to as 'Central Hampshire and New Forest'.

The Panel concludes that the overall spatial strategy is appropriate but that the document should be more locationally specific in its guidance on where new development should be planned.

The Panel believes that the South East Plan does not fully recognise the importance of the Region to the national economy, and that within the South East the strategy underplays the importance of the areas to the west and south of London - the London Fringe Sub-region [Surrey], the Central Oxfordshire Sub-region, and the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley Sub-region. The Panel concludes that the draft Plan's housebuilding proposals in these areas are insufficient in comparison to the predicted job growth. Its assessment is that constraining economic growth in these areas will not divert investment to regeneration areas elsewhere in the South East, but will result in jobs being lost to other parts of the UK or overseas. Consequently, it concludes that the amount of housebuilding in these areas should be increased.

Within these areas, the Panel feels it is logical for the additional development to be in locations which are designated in the draft Plan as 'Regional Hubs' together with the towns which have been designated by the Government as 'Growth Points'. In Hampshire, Basingstoke is in both categories, so the Panel proposes increased housebuilding there (further details below).

Reflecting its desire for greater locational specificity, the Panel recommends that the final Plan should designate four new Strategic Development Areas (SDAs) to complement the two already proposed in South Hampshire. None of the four new SDAs is in Hampshire, but the one proposed on the western edge of Reading could have implications for Hampshire, not least in terms of significantly increased traffic on routes leading into Berkshire.

The Economy

The Panel is critical of the draft Plan's economic policies on several counts. It believes they are inadequate to facilitate sustained economic growth across the region, that too much reliance is placed on 'smart growth' (improvements in productivity, more intensive use of existing business floorspace, etc), and that insufficient weight is attached to facilitating growth in the economically buoyant parts of the region.

In the Panel's view, it is a serious deficiency that the Plan does not quantify employment land provision in most sub-regions. (Hampshire is an exception to this due to the County Council's work in north Hampshire and through the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) in respect of South Hampshire.)

To address some of these concerns, the Panel proposes increased housebuilding (see below) and some detailed changes to the draft economy policies. However, it does not feel it has sufficient information to remedy all the document's shortcomings in this regard, so proposes an early partial review of the Plan in respect of the economy.

The Panel encourages local authorities to work together on joint employment land reviews to inform the partial review of the South East Plan as well as district council Local Development Documents. It recommends that the latter should safeguard key sites for marine industries, notably along the Solent coastline, but rejects calls made at the EiP for the South East Plan to include a policy about port development at Dibden Bay.

Housing

The draft Plan proposed that provision be made for the building of 28,900 new homes per year, with most of these being in the areas defined as sub-regions. A total of 6,100 per year would be in Hampshire: 4,000 in South Hampshire; 1,300 in north Hampshire; 800 in Central Hampshire and New Forest.

The Panel recommends that the regional total should be increased by 11 per cent to 32,000 per year. In order to support economic growth - as explained above - the Panel proposes that most of the additional housing should be in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey. Hampshire's figure would rise by 5 per cent to 6,415 per year: the extra homes in Hampshire would be at Andover, Basingstoke, Whitehill/Bordon and Winchester. The figures for the cities, boroughs and districts in Hampshire are set out in the attached appendix and are explained in the text below about each area of the County.

Calls from developers and Government representatives at the EiP for even higher figures - the highest of these being 42,500 region-wide - have been resisted by the inspectors. They also rejected the notion that housing could be made more affordable by increasing the rate of housebuilding. This recognises the evidence presented to the EiP by the South East County Councils that new homes represent only a small part of the number of properties on sale at any time, and thus building more new homes would have little effect on house prices.

The Panel concludes that the best way to enable more people to have a home of their own is to increase the supply of affordable housing¹. It endorses the draft Plan's target that 35% of all new homes across the region should be affordable housing, and backs the call made by local authorities for increased Government funding to enable this target to be achieved.

Transport and Other Infrastructure

A Regional Transport Strategy was approved by the Government in 2004 following a mini EiP and the draft South East Plan only proposes selective changes to that strategy. The Panel endorses many of the proposals, but believes that stronger encouragement should be given to local authorities to test new charging initiatives as a part of overall demand management. However, it calls on the Government to show greater leadership on road user charging. (Transport schemes are covered in the sub-regional sections below.)

The draft Plan contains a separate chapter on Implementation, while the South East England Regional Assembly has also produced a separate 'Implementation Plan' which sets out the transport and other infrastructure improvements which are needed. The Panel welcomes this emphasis on implementation mechanisms and endorses the need for infrastructure provision to be coordinated with new development.

The Panel acknowledge the difficulties which result from the utility regulators' short-time horizons for investment and the constraints on local authorities' capital and revenue funding. They call for a longer term Government commitment to public sector funding. However, they reject the draft Plan's proposal that new development should be conditional on infrastructure investment, seeing this as unrealistic and impractical.

The Panel supports the creation of a Regional Infrastructure Fund, which has been strongly championed by SEERA and the South East England Development Agency. The inspectors recognise that other infrastructure is at least as important as transport and in that regard advocate that a new policy on green infrastructure should be added to the Plan.

Other Topics

Generally, the Panel endorses the draft Plan's approach on other topics subject to minor changes. They endorse the concept of Strategic Gaps, but says the detailed boundaries of the Gaps should be regularly reviewed.

The Panel puts forward a process for apportioning London's waste amongst the South East counties which would not treat the Green Belt as a constraint on the selection of waste disposal sites.

South Hampshire

Few changes are proposed to the South Hampshire sub-regional strategy which the Panel says is "based on commendably thorough research". It regards the economic growth target for the area as "aspirational" and "very ambitious" but supports it nonetheless. The Panel rejects the idea, put forward at the EiP, that some development land should be held in reserve until there is more certainty that the growth target will be achieved.

The Panel endorses the housebuilding figures for all the authorities, or parts thereof, which are within South Hampshire and also endorse the location and size of the two proposed Strategic Development Areas (SDAs). The Panel agrees that the pace of building in each SDA should be coordinated with the rate of infrastructure provision, but rejects making the new development conditional on infrastructure provision.

Whilst acknowledging the case for Strategic Gaps in South Hampshire, it says these should be designated in District Council Local Development Documents using the criteria in the South East Plan's region-wide policy. The Panel therefore proposes deletion of the policy which names the Strategic Gaps in South Hampshire.

The Panel commends the coordination achieved by the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) in shaping the strategy for South Hampshire and says it is impressed by the achievements of Solent Transport. The inspectors concur that the Midlands-Southampton rail freight upgrade is of regional, let alone sub-regional, importance and should be given priority by the South East Plan. They propose that the Chickenhall Lane Link Road and improved interchange facilities at Southampton Airport should be added to the list of sub-regional transport schemes.

North Hampshire

The Panel concludes that SEERA was right to merge the previously separate Western Corridor sub-region and Blackwater Valley sub-region and that the unified sub-region's boundaries, which include north Hampshire, are right. They criticise the sub-regional strategy for not containing a clear statement of core strategy and reiterate for this area, their criticisms of the draft Plan's overall treatment of economic matters (see above). The Panel regards the proposal for 40-60 hectares of new employment land in north Hampshire as anomalous, given the absence of equivalent figures for other parts of the sub-region. However as it reflects the approach the Panel would like to see across the whole region, they say they are loathe to propose its deletion. The figure could be refined, they suggest, by the county and borough/district councils before the South East Plan is finalised.

To better match future housing and job growth, the Panel recommend 19 per cent more housebuilding in the sub-region than proposed in the draft Plan. Most of this extra housing would be in Berkshire, including a Strategic Development Area of 7,500 new homes to the west of Reading north of the M4 motorway, 2,500 on the southern edge of Reading, and 1,000 more at Wokingham. The only increase in north Hampshire is at Basingstoke town where housebuilding would be 9 per cent higher than proposed in the draft Plan (865 per year instead of 795). This means 1,400 additional dwellings at Basingstoke over the whole Plan period which represents the Government's calculation of what the town's Growth Point designation means over and above the draft South East Plan. The Panel confirms that the figures for Basingstoke should continue to be conditional on resolution of waste water treatment issues.

The Panel endorse the draft Plan's housebuilding figures for Hart District and Rushmoor Borough due to environmental constraints and because substantial development around smaller towns and villages would not meet sustainability objectives. As with South Hampshire and the region generally, they propose deletion of the sub-regional policy which would have made development conditional on infrastructure provision.

The Panel proposes a pruning of the list of infrastructure schemes for this sub-region; not because they are not appropriate, but because they are not all of sub-regional significance. Schemes to remain include Airtrack, the upgrading of Farnborough Station, the Basingstoke Station by-pass, new railway stations on the Basingstoke-Reading line and Basingstoke waste water treatment.

The Panel describes the fragmentation of planning responsibilities in the Western Corridor and Blackwater Valley sub-region as a "huge challenge" and suggests re-modelling these along the same lines as PUSH. At a more local level, the Panel suggest a Greater Reading Development Partnership to ensure joined-up planning of the major development which they propose there and which would span several local authorities' areas. They also encourage the Blackwater Valley authorities to cooperate on the production of their Local Development Frameworks. The existing Berkshire strategic transport group ought to be expanded, the Panel says, to include Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Surrey County Councils.

Central Hampshire and New Forest

The only proposals specific to this area in the draft Plan are housebuilding figures. The Panel agrees with SEERA that the draft Plan's region-wide policies provide sufficient guidance on other topics to enable the preparation of Local Development Frameworks.

The inspectors conclude that the housebuilding already proposed in the rural parts of this area is appropriate, but they propose additional housing in three towns. An extra 600 homes are recommended for Andover over and above those proposed in the draft Plan and an extra 1,800 at Winchester. The Hampshire Structure Plan allows a higher building rate than the South East Plan, the Panel argues, so unless the latter's figure is increased, growth in later years would be stifled. No substantive evidence was presented at the EiP of overriding environmental constraints at Winchester, the Panel says, while the existence of a reserve Major Development Area indicates the potential for more building. Some 2,500 new homes are proposed by the Panel at Whitehill/Bordon in response to the potential for town expansion outlined at the EiP by the Whitehill/Bordon Opportunity Steering Group led by East Hampshire District Council. This figure should not be an impediment to a higher one if that was shown to be sustainable, the Panel adds.

A case was put to the EiP by developers for the incorporation in the Plan of a 12,500 home new town at Micheldever Station. The Panel's report comprehensively rejects this proposal.

APPENDIX

EiP Panel's recommended housing provision in Hampshire