Agenda item

From the Cabinet, 3 March 2015

Further to Minute 123 of the Cabinet, the Council considered a report of the Executive Director for Place, which set out the process for addressing the housing needs of Coventry and Warwickshire.

At its meeting on 21st November 2014, the Coventry and Warwickshire Joint Committee for Economic Growth unanimously endorsed a report on the Coventry and Warwickshire Housing Market Area (HMA), which detailed an approach to meeting housing needs.  The report also set out a transparent process and timeline for appropriately planning and delivering the housing needs in full.

The report, which was attached at Appendix 1 to the report now submitted, clarified the objectively assessed need for housing in the Coventry and Warwickshire HMA at 80,080 homes between 2011 and 2031 (4,004 per annum). In this context, Coventry’s housing needs would equate to 36,220 homes (1,811 per annum).  There was a clear acknowledgement that Coventry would be unable to meet this level of housing need and, as a result, the report endorsed a phased redistribution of housing need across the Housing Market Area.

The first phase of this redistribution built upon the Coventry and Warwickshire Joint Strategic Housing Market Assessment (Nov 2013) (SHMA).  The second phase managed a remaining shortfall of unplanned housing need evidenced primarily by the most recent government population projections.

As a result, the city’s housing target would reduce to around 23,600 (1,180 a year), although this would need to be considered in the context of land availability and sustainable development.  In summary, the councils draft assessment of capacity within Coventry (the draft Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment for Coventry (September 2014) (SHLAA)) currently identified land for housing of up to 23,300 dwellings, which included land currently within the Green Belt. The remaining 12,620 homes were then redistributed to Warwickshire through the phased approach.

Some of the housing need redistributed in phase 1 had already been planned for in Stratford and Warwick as these plans were more advanced.  North Warwickshire’s plan had not had regard to the redistribution approach at this stage as the new population projections placed an upward pressure on its own level of need.  Opportunities may still exist to work alongside the local authority areas of Nuneaton and Bedworth and Rugby to explore how this initial redistribution could best be planned.  Such opportunities would be explored through the Duty to Co-operate with consideration given to stakeholder engagement, the Joint Green Belt review, infrastructure issues and opportunities, landscape characteristics, land availability, employment opportunities and economic growth proposals.

The process and timeline provided a transparent basis for joint working across the Coventry and Warwickshire Housing Market Area for the coming years.  It sought to adopt Local Plans across each authority by the end of 2016 ensuring a range of housing and economic growth opportunities were identified in the process.  It then moved on to consider longer term options for a co-ordinated review of plans, which could include a joint plan for Coventry and Warwickshire.

In view of the significance of this matter, it was accepted that all the constituent authorities should be asked to formally commit to the process as agreed by the Joint Committee.

RESOLVED that the Council endorse the Joint Committee paper attached as Appendix 1 to the report submitted.