Planning and Affordable Housing (Hansard, 8 April 1998)

§ Baroness Hayman

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has today issued Circular 6/98:Planning and Affordable Housing, which replaces Circular 13/96. The circular is intended to provide a clearer framework for preparing plan policies on affordable housing. It should help local planning authorities adopt a more consistent, plan-based approach, which will facilitate speedier and more effective negotiations and decisions on planning applications involving affordable housing.

The Government wish to optimise the contribution that the planning system can make to the overall supply of affordable housing. However, they also want to ensure that affordable housing policies in development plans are consistent with government guidance and that they are consistently applied.

The new circular lowers and further revises the existing thresholds, confirms a preference for providing affordable housing as part of the proposed development, and clarifies further the use of financial contributions in lieu of on-site provision. It also clarifies that the policy in the circular applies to all types of new housing proposals.

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The circular revises the existing threshold arrangements so that local planning authorities should only seek an element of affordable housing in:

(a) housing developments of 25 or more dwellings or residential sites of 1 hectare or more, irrespective of the number of dwellings; and
(b) in Inner London, in housing developments of 15 or more dwellings, or to residential sites of 0.5 hectare or more, irrespective of the number of dwellings.

In settlements in rural areas with a population of 3,000 or fewer, the local planning authority should adopt appropriate thresholds. The new arrangements also provide, in exceptional circumstances, for local planning authorities in those areas where the higher threshold at (a) would apply to seek to adopt a lower threshold, through the local plan process. These threshold arrangements should be based on assessments which include local needs and available supply of land for housing, and adopted only through the local plan process.

Where a local planning authority has not yet adopted its local plan or UDP, it will have to have regard to Circular 6/98 in preparing its plan. However, PPG1 makes it clear that, where development plans are very close to adoption at the time that new information (including guidance) becomes available, it may be preferable to adopt the plan and then start an immediate review. Therefore, in cases where plans are close to adoption (for example, where a modifications stage has already been held and no further modifications on other issues are proposed by the local authority), it may be appropriate, in order to prevent further delay, for the local planning authority to adopt its plan and to prepare proposals for early alterations to the plan having regard to the policy guidance in Circular 6/98.

Local planning authorities should prepare such proposals for alterations expeditiously and agree timetables for alteration with the Government Office for the Region. In cases where local planning authorities fail to take such action promptly, the Secretary of State may well consider it appropriate to direct them to prepare alterations to their adopted development plans within a specified period.

All local planning authorities will have to take into account the policy guidance in the new circular in determining applications for planning permission.

The Government will monitor the implementation of the affordable housing policy and intend to incorporate the advice in the new circular in the future revision of PPG3: Housing.