Archived decisions

REPORT OF THE

EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR ENVIRONMENT

PART II

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY STRUCTURE PLAN : POLICY H4 MONITORING

1. The Executive Member is pleased to report that Hampshire has once again met the Government's targets for house building, without releasing any of the County's reserve greenfield sites. This follows joint consideration by representatives of the three strategic planning authorities - Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton - of figures which show that the land supply for house building over the next four years is well above the requirement set out in the Government's Regional Planning Guidance. The most recent figures show that supplies of house building land within the area of the three authorities exceeds requirements by over 9,000 dwellings. This trend has increased over the last few years, with planning permissions for housing development being granted faster than developers are building new homes.

2. The Hampshire Structure Plan includes reserve greenfield sites which could accommodate 14,000 homes, in the event that annual monitoring showed that the supply of land was insufficient to meet Government requirements. It is therefore welcome that the supply of housing land is more than sufficient without having to resort to the use of reserve greenfield sites.

3. It is expected that the South East Plan will be finalised in early 2009, and that will then supersede the existing Structure Plan policies. The current South East Plan does not include the reserve site approach, despite representations being made to Ministers to make such provision as it has proved to be effective in Hampshire.

M.J. KENDAL

Executive Member for Environment

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