Local housing targets

Why you should attend

Setting core strategy/local plan housing targets is challenging. Already a number of core strategy examinations have been suspended as inspectors enforce the NPPF, including joint working and the duty to co-operate.

This briefing and workshop is for planners, developers, housebuilders and landowners. It is about how to develop, review and challenge housing provision targets in core strategies and local plans. It brings together top practitioners to share insights into both policy and technical issues.

Benefits of attending

This briefing and workshop will help you:

1. Set sound housing targets
2. Based on robust evidence
3. Contribute effectively to the debate
4. Promote the right sites
5. Get homes delivered in practice
6. Understand the new planning system and government objectives
7. Learn about demographic pressures
8. Assess housing need and demand
9. Deal with joint working and the duty to cooperate
10. Understand projections and scenarios
11. Know the implications for local communities
12. Link housing and the economy

Who should attend?

• Planning officers
• Elected members
• Housebuilders / developers

Programme

9.00 Registration and coffee

9.30 Welcome and introduction by the Chair

Cristina Howick, Partner, PBA Roger Tym

9.40 The Demographic Context

• What the 2011 Census tells us
• The impact of an ageing population
• Household growth 2011-21
• Is Demand slowing?
• Winners and Losers

John Hollis

10.10 The NPPF: one year on

Justin Kenworthy, Director, Barton Willmore

10.40 From RSS targets to 'objectively assessed need' - the Birmingham Development Plan

• A little history - the RSS targets
• What the numbers now tell us
• The challenge of delivery
• Creating communities, not just delivering numbers
• Will our neighbours help? - The Duty to Co-operate.

Waheed Nazir, Director of Planning and Regeneration, Birmingham City Council

11.10 Coffee and networking

11.30 The development industry

12.00 Recent case law relevant to housing targets

• 5 year supply: can it be examined below the Borough level  - Richborough Estates v SSCLG
• The relevance of other sites: Fox Strategic Land v SSCLG
• Prematurity: Wainhomes v SSCLG
• Localism: Tewkesbury BC v SSCLG

Christopher Young, No 5 Chambers

12.30 Housing supply to meet plan targets

• Getting housing allocated, permitted and built, and very soon
• It is more productive to engage with the development plan system
• Or does that risk the window of opportunity closing before a decision is made?

Dominic Lawson, Dominic Lawson Bespoke Planning Ltd1.00 Lunch

1.00 Lunch

2.00 The big numbers

• What is this objectively assessed need?
• How do we measure it?
• Demographic projections or employment forecasts?
• What do these numbers tell us?
• How can you tell a good one from a bad one?
• What about cross-boundary issues and the Duty to Cooperate?
• What if we don't have the sustainable capacity?
• Balancing need against constraints

Richard Pestell, Senior Associate, PBA Roger Tym

2.30 Affordable housing and the new SHMA

Simon Drummond-Hay, Principal, HDH Planning and Development

3.00 Planning for housing - the strategic overlay

• Possible implications of not planning for housing
• Some pre-requisites for successful joint working across boundaries 
• Examples of good practice (joint or aligned core strategies), but also of limitations of voluntary joint working in certain circumstances including the under-bounded city
• Possible ways of providing the strategic overlay where missing

Corinne Swain, Arup Fellow, Arup

3.30 How others do it

John Davies MBE, Chair, Welsh Planning Review

4.00 Panel discussion

4.20 Conclusion by the chair

Cristina Howick

4.30 Close