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Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment

In October 2008 Tandridge District Council adopted its Core Strategy which sets out a planning vision for the next ten to fifteen years and explains the principles which will be used to deliver housing requirements. The Core Strategy makes it clear there will be no change to the Green Belt boundaries, unless it is not possible to find sufficient land for housing within the built up areas.

Following the  adoption of the Core Strategy the next step was to ensure that there will be a sufficient supply of housing land for the next fifteen years as required by the Government. Even though new housing development has slowed down, the Council needed to do this research, to be ready when the housing market improves.

This has been done by carrying out a "Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment" (SHLAA). Because the government requires these assessments to be carried out, it has set out  SHLAA CLG Practice Guidance (This link will open in a new window) about how this process should be carried out. The Council also referred to the Planning Advisory Service SHLAA PAS guidance note (This link will open in a new window).

The SHLAA is a technical process of assessing what sites may be capable of being developed, whether developers can bring the sites forward and the potential number of homes which might be developed on the sites. The SHLAA is not a planning policy document and does not allocate land for development, but it requires the Council to make judgements, such as whether a site is capable of being brought forward for development. The SHLAA Methodology - final sets out how the Council undertook the assessment.

All potential sources of land within the built up areas and villages have been considered in the SHLAA, although sites currently in the Green Belt were not considered as the assessment showed that there was sufficient land in the built up areas.  The identification of a site within the SHLAA does not imply the Council would necessarily grant planning permission for residential development. All planning applications for such development will continue to be assessed against the Core Strategy and Local Plan policies. For example some sites in the SHLAA may be in existing commercial use and development for residential would be considered against the policies which seek to retain employment land.

The final report was considered by the Planning Policy Committee on 3rd March 2011. The SHLAA Report and site assessments are available on the following web page: SHLAASites. Because sufficient sites have been identified the Council has decided not to prepare a Site Allocations Development Plan Document for the time being.

 

Related Pages:

Planning policy    Baseline Data Report December 2009 (Documents)

Core Strategy (Pages)

Green Belt Settlements background paper (Documents)

Harestone Character Assessment (Documents)

Harestone Design Guidance (Documents)

Harestone Valley and Woldingham Design Guidance (Pages)

Housing Supply Statement 1st April 2010 (Documents)

Marie Curie Urban Design Concept Statement (Documents)

Scoping Report December 2009 (Documents)

Woldingham Character Assessment (Documents)

Woldingham Design Guidance (Documents)

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