Friday 14 September 2007

Housing in Tandridge Good News/Bad News

As local residents might have noticed in the press Government Inspectors have said that Tandridge will need to make provision for 2,500 new houses over the next 20 years. In one way we are very fortunate. The 125 dwellings per annum we have been told we need is the joint second lowest in the whole of the south east and is substantially below the current rate of building in the district.

However this doesn't tell the whole story.

* This is a minimum, not a target. The Council has been told it cannot ration planning permissions.

* At current rates of building, the district would meet this target on 'windfall' sites alone - a windfall site is one not identified in the Local Development Framework (currently known as the local plan) and usually these are redevelopments of existing residential and industrial sites (including the notorious back garden developments). The Labour Government have told us that we have to ignore this and provide new sites for building anyway.

*As I have mentioned before the vast majority of Tandridge is Green Belt. New building will have to take place within the urban areas Caterham/Warlingham/Whyleafe, Woldingham and Oxted/Hurst Green. This will have to be achieved by 1) more back garden development, 2) The loss of green space or commercial sites in the towns 3) Loss of Green Belt. Either way these areas are going to get more built up.

Oh, and of course Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State and Yvette Cooper the Housing Ministers, could ignore all of this and make us build far more anyway