Blurred Vision - TrustNews June 2007
Recently Winchester City Council published its 'Vision for Winchester' and has been promoting debate and discussion on what it calls 'Towards our Future'. In essence this sets out targets for meeting policies in the current Local District Plan which runs to 2011, and looks beyond it. But, to some extent it is whistling in the dark, because one essential ingredient of the future of Winchester is shrouded in uncertainty: the size of the population it will need to support in future, and where they will live.
The plan itself provides for 7,295 dwellings to be provided between 1996 and 2011. Of these, 5,049 had been built by 2006 and 3,805 further sites had been identified by then, including 1,100 in a major development area west of Waterlooville. Even if none of those 1,100 is built by 2011, it is clear that Winchester District can meet the Plan target. In addition 805 sites are already identified for completion after 2011.
However, the Government, through its regional office in Guildford, has persistently pushed for the Plan numbers to be substantially exceeded. The Government Office for the South-East (GOSE - or God's Own Special Experts) demanded that the Plan period be extended from 2011 to 2016 so that building rates could be increased, but were rebuffed by the Inspectors at the Local Plan Inquiry. They have persistently tried to trigger implementation of all the reserve sites for Major Development in Hampshire (including Barton Farm) even though the monitoring process set up under the County Structure Plan has found, year after year, that there is no need for any of these before 2011. Indeed, the 2007 exercise found that Hampshire's countywide housing targets will be comfortably exceeded without the need for any of the MDAs. Planning permissions in the last three years have been granted at a much faster rate than builders have been able or willing to implement them.
There are two flaws: the Structure Plan itself is being superseded and a mismatch between houses being built for the market and those for the 'affordable' sector.
There are two flaws in this promising ointment. First, the Structure Plan itself is being superseded by the emerging Regional Plan for the Southeast as a whole. GOSE has been at work arguing strongly that the housing figures for the region should be substantially increased over those proposed by the Regional Assembly. The safeguard of the monitoring system is now removed, and without the need to show compelling justification before MDAs can be implemented.
Secondly, although total numbers of homes being provided exceed current target levels, there is a mismatch between those being built for the market and those for the 'affordable' sector, where there is a very large shortfall.
Until this problem is solved, there seems little reality in planning Winchester's future in any great detail, as so much of the pattern of services that will be needed must depend on the population to be catered for - and where they live.
One temptation to be avoided is to increase total housing numbers so that the proportion taken up by affordable dwellings can be met. (Builders are adamant that they can operate successfully only if the share of affordable units in their developments is kept within given limits).
The other obstacle to achieving 20:20 vision by 2020 is that any Government which `solved' the housing problem by eliminating the shortage of accommodation would be signing its own death warrant. Any increase in the supply of homes would result in a fall of at least 15-20% in the market price of existing houses. If millions of voters were to see tens of thousands of pounds wiped off the value of their property, they would be quick to record their reaction at the ballot box.