Friday 13 May 2016

Yet more dreadful news on "planning policy"

In yet another blow to the planning system, the Conservative Government has won a ruling which means that developers will not have to provide affordable homes on small sites.

In 2014, the Government introduced a “small sites affordable housing contributions policy” that introduced a “national threshold of ten units,” below which affordable housing could not be sought. In certain rural areas, the threshold would be five – but many rural areas fall outside of the government’s ridiculous assessment of what is and what is not rural.

The decision had been successfully challenged in the courts by West Berkshire District Council and Reading Borough Council but, this week, the Court of Appeal overturned that ruling and sided with the Government.

It is also the case that the dreadful Housing and Planning Bill is about to receive Royal Assent. I will write more about this extremely damaging piece of legislation more fully in the near-future.

No comments: