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Are You Keeping An Eye On Crucial Dates For Land Development?

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Are You Keeping An Eye On Crucial Dates For Land Development?

The world of planning policy is often fast changing, being affected by proposed changes to national policy, emerging local plans and local authority interpretation.

A lot of these changes aren’t easily visible to the general public or landowners unless they are regularly monitoring land supply positions and/or seeking specific advice from planning consultants. Many of our clients will be aware that, in particular, Harrogate Council now have in excess of a 5-year housing supply, which in their case makes it much more difficult to obtain new planning permissions.

However, there are alternative ways of looking at unlocking development potential involving the construction of a good planning case based on exceptional circumstances, often including a significant proportion of social housing. Our team have wide-ranging experience in doing this.

Social and affordable housing have historically had associations with lower values. Nowadays a wider range of affordable tenures means that often these can significantly compete with market housing values, particularly where a large percentage of affordable housing is a condition of granting consent.

This, combined with planning consultations in York, Ryedale and Selby, means that now is a good time to start or continue the promotion of land in these areas, plus Harrogate and other authorities such as Hambleton and Richmondshire.

In York, planning inspectors have asked for the six-week consultation period before examining the plan at public hearing sessions later this year. The consultation is asking for comments on additional evidence and modifications submitted since the ‘Phase 1 hearings in 2019’, including the recent submission of the Green Belt Topic Paper Addendum (2021). The consultation will end at midnight on 7 July 2021.

Selby District Council has assessed all the sites in its SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment) and is consulting on its draft database of sites. This is an opportunity to support existing proposed sites, or alternatively to comment on why they are not suitable and why an alternative site might be a better one. Their deadline is Friday 25th June.

In Ryedale, the Council is looking to establish what land is available and has launched a two-month ‘Call for Sites’ to encourage landowners, developers and other organisation to propose land that might be suitable for uses such as housing, commercial/business, retail and tourism. This ‘Call for Sites’ consultation will close on 5 July 2021.

Existing clients of Lister Haigh are receiving advice on what the opportunities are, and what this involves, but any other landowners are welcome to contact either Giles Chaplin or Peter Vernon via email or mobile numbers gileschaplin@listerhaigh.co.uk 07801 230494 or petervernon@listerhaigh.co.uk 07702 415772. Lister Haigh is offering a development promotion service that will undertake and submit the required submissions for a fixed fee of £350 per property, and further information is available by contacting Giles or Peter.

Finally, the team at Lister Haigh is delighted to be returning to the Great Yorkshire Show 2021 on 13th – 16th July. The Show is running for 4 rather than the traditional 3 days in order to address social distancing issues and tickets are now available online. If you would like to join us on our Stand for an informal chat or to meet the team, we hope you will do so.