Faxby Park
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Harrogate Borough Council’s position on housing and the local plan

22 August 2017

Following the publication of a number of news items on opposiition to the housing developments in their areas, we are publishing document on the background to the proposals in the region. This has been published by Harrogate Borough Council and designed to explain the need and reasons for the housing – reasons that are much than central government are telling local authorities to build more.

There is a also a second consultation coming to an end on the 25 August 2017.

 

 

Richard Cooper, leader of Harrogate Borough Council, said:

We are seeing thousands of representations coming in to the Council about sites for new housing.  This is welcome as when the Planning Inspectorate come to make their choices over the sites they need as much information as possible about every site.

I understand that every site – small or large – will be controversial to those who live nearby.

Acknowledging that, however, we do need to bear in mind that our area has severe problems which housing can help to solve.  That is why the Council has set out the rationale behind housing growth and the benefits it could bring to our area.

 

Harrogate District Draft Local Plan additional sites consultation 14 July – 25 August

To register for the next Local Plan public consultation please visit http://consult.harrogate.gov.uk/common/register.jsp

For those who have previously registered with the portal, or commented on earlier consultations on the Local Plan, there is no need to register again.

 

 

HARROGATE BOROUGH COUNCIL – POSITION ON HOUSING IN THE LOCAL PLAN

The Local Plan contains many parts, but if we just focus on housing, we are talking about an additional 16,500 homes in our district before 2035.

The Local Plan, alongside the council’s Economic Growth Strategy, have the potential to resolve a multitude of serious problems facing our district.

Six very serious problems, in no particular order:

Our young people cannot afford to buy a house here

Our average (mean) house prices are £342,590 – 31.5 per cent higher than the North Yorkshire average,

and 35.6 per cent higher than the national average.

It is beyond most of the people who grow up in our district to be able to afford to buy a house here.

The price of the average property in Harrogate is 13.4 times the average salary.

We lose many young people to university towns and cities because we have great schools. But they cannot afford to return. And those who complete their education locally find themselves living with parents often into their mid-thirties.

An increase in the supply of good quality smaller market housing across the district will help address this imbalance.

Commuters are a major cause of congestion on our roads

Whilst we also have a high proportion of local traffic in the towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough (that is people travelling less than 5 miles in their cars) which needs addressing, commuters are a major issue.

To generalise – people who can afford to live in our district commute daily to higher paid jobs in cities like Leeds and York, and the less wealthy people working in our large tourism sector commute daily from cheaper housing areas in cities like Leeds and York. The A61 and the A59 in the morning and afternoon peak prove this point.

The council’s Economic Growth Strategy aims to bring higher value jobs to our local economy, allow growing local businesses to expand and stay here, and raise our average workplace earnings from their current below average (median) level of £25,486.

The part the Local Plan has to play is, again, in increasing the supply of good quality smaller market housing across the district. This will help those who work here afford to live here too.

We suffer from poor air quality due to stationery traffic

We have air quality issues in Knaresborough, Harrogate and Ripon. The majority of this is caused by private vehicle exhausts. Congestion caused by both local and commuter traffic causes stationery queues at busy junctions.

Whilst the Local Plan is not the only solution to be sought here – addressing the commuting issue by enabling people who work in our district to live here too will go a long way.

Our villages are struggling

Without people to use them rural pubs, post offices, community centres and village shops are closing. Rural bus services are in decline because there aren’t enough people using them.

While fewer and fewer young people and families can afford to live in our villages local services will decline and close.

Proportionate developments in many villages will help revitalise and support rural centres. Part of the Local Plan is a ‘housing mix’ policy which presses developers to build a mix of houses suited to the needs of the local area – not just to what they can sell for the most profit on the open market.

Development also brings investment into these facilities, alongside more people to use them.

There are thousands of people on the housing waiting list

Thousands of people in our district are in temporary or unsuitable accommodation. This is a figure we all, as a community, should want to reduce.

The Local Plan presses developers to aim for 40 per cent affordable housing on each site – defined as housing for those who cannot afford to buy or rent at the market value. It can be delivered through a registered provider, like a housing association, or through the council directly. We have a good record of achieving close to this figure.

Working on percentages, it stands to reason that whilst our overall supply of housing it low, our supply of affordable housing is also low. Whilst this is the case, we stand no chance of offering those thousands who are in temporary or unsuitable accommodation another option than living in cramped accommodation, bed and breakfasts or homelessness.

Local businesses struggle to recruit staff

Since potential employees cannot afford to live here and, in many cases, cannot afford to travel here there is a recruitment crisis in our district.

Businesses will not stay locally and will not relocate here when there are other areas where the supply of staff is plentiful. We have seen home-grown businesses leave our district, and leave large gaps in the quality of our economy, simply because they cannot fill their vacancies. Without those businesses and without economic growth our area will begin to decline.

Most local people will recognise these problems. In fact, these are problems faced by desirable places to live across the country. Most will also recognise that an increase in the supply of housing is the solution.

At Harrogate Borough Council we are determined to address these problems by providing the number and type of houses we need.

Local politicians have ducked this issue for decades. But I am proud to be a part of this administration which is finally working for young people and families, reducing congestion, tackling air quality, addressing homelessness and supporting businesses.

I hear people across the whole of our district telling me that they accept the need for more houses, but that they should be built somewhere else.

Clearly, if everybody holds this position and we accept that everyone is correct then no houses can be built anywhere. But everyone is not correct. There are many places where houses can be built, just not places where people nearby want them to be built.

Professional planning experts have assessed how many new homes we need, based on natural population growth, job vacancies, people on the housing waiting list, projected employment requirements and other statistics. To meet this local need we have looked across the district and assessed every site on its planning merits then put those sites in front of the public to ask what they think.

During the current consultation period, local residents, groups, councillors and Parish Councils will have the opportunity to present their own case to rebut the evidence provided by professional planning officers. This case can be based on local knowledge, expertise found from within the community, evidence from planning and legal professionals or any other source of information. I expect Councillors to campaign alongside their constituents and welcome the contributions that all will make to gathering that evidence.

It is natural that the vast majority of those with a site near them will disagree that this is a suitable site. When all the public comments are received during the consultation period the Council will produce its response which may remove or add sites from and to the draft Local Plan. Following another public consultation the plan will be submitted to a Government Planning Inspector.

That Inspector will then make a decision based on their professional experience, training and their assessment of the evidence placed before them from both the Council and from local people and their representatives.

So the process is a thorough one with all sides able to present their case and an independent professional assessing that evidence and coming to a conclusion that will provide us with the land for housing our area needs.

Development is rarely popular with everybody but we will, as a Council and a community, fail future generations in terms of housing, the environment and jobs if we fail to address the housing issue.

We are proud that we are doing so and making our district a district where future generations can live, work, have families of their own and see their children and grandchildren continuing to grow while being part of our community.

 

 

4 Comments

  1. My daughter and partner are trying to exist and work in Harrogate. They are not the high earners that have moved into the area to buy five hundred thousand pound (plus) houses and get their children a fantastic education whilst commuting to highly paid jobs in York, Leeds or even London. They have grown up in the area and had their education locally or in Leeds. They both have jobs (vetinary nurse and computer repairer) in Harrogate so can’t or don’t want to move away. Neither can they afford to buy a decent house in Harrogate. Even two bedrooms terrace houses are going for inflated prices. Rents are astronomical with landlords charging diabolical amounts with a poor service when repairs needed.
    Your local housing policies are not providing anywhere near enough homes to keep working class families in the area! Why should they move to Leeds in order to buy a house and then have all the commuting fees to pay? My daughter also has MS and as this progresses will need a house that can be adapted so terrace houses with steep stairs and narrow doors are not a viable option. What as a council are you doing for local families that are not wealthy but are providing basic services and are the backbone of this town? Answers please?

  2. Stationery traffic? Is that lorries loaded with paper, envelopes, sticky tape etc that are causing all the are pollution? If HBC’s standards of forward planning is as good as its spelling and proof reading, I despair.

  3. In regards to HBC’s 3000 ‘Great Hammerton’ proposal that will destroy and directly impact four THRIVING villages, the hipocracy of ‘our villages are struggling’ further reinforces what an ill throughout proposal it is. Add to that the environmental ,agricultural impact as well as adding expendental growth to A59 traffic and HBC plan further underlines the weakness of the Great Hammerton proposal…
    Plus, providing ‘affordable housing’ 10 miles from Harrogate and 10 miles from York does nobody any favours..

  4. The fact that Green Hammerton is being considered for housing development is farcical. Clearly it’s the path of least political resistance. HBC needs to bite the bullet and build houses where they are the most use by way of commuting value, and to deliver homes for people on lower wages. The bullet needs to be bitten; Harrogate needs to accept some responsibility. I’m a Harrogate resident but at this rate, there will be absolutely nowhere for the next generation to live.

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