Inspector indicates way forward for Charnwood local plan

Charnwood Borough Council submitted its draft core strategy for 2011 to 2028 for examination in 2013. Planning inspector Kevin Ward wrote to the Council last April expressing concerns about the evidence base underpinning the Council's planned housing provision of 790 new homes per year (hpy). He recommended that the examination was suspended for nine months to allow the Council to prepare an updated housing market assessment.

Following the publication of the Leicester and Leicestershire strategic housing market assessment (SHMA) last June, further hearings took place in December and January and the inspector wrote to the Council last week (1-page / 30 KB PDF) to say that the core strategy "can be made sound through main modifications".

The SHMA concluded that between 810 and 820 homes were required each year in Charnwood until 2031. Representations prepared by the Council for the December hearings said the Council considered that the objectively assessed need for housing in the borough "should not be increased or decreased" in light of the SHMA.

However, representations on behalf of housebuilders' trade body the Home Builders Federation and several developers criticised the methodology used in the SHMA and estimated the borough's housing requirements at between 820 hpy and 1,218 hpy.

Ward's letter said that the inspector would liaise with the Council in order to produce main modifications to the core strategy. The inspector said that the modifications "will need to be subject to sustainability appraisal and full public consultation" and that he would "take account of comments received on the main modification, along with the additional sustainability appraisal before finalising [his] report".