All in a Pickle? Challenges to North Somerset Core Strategy

North Somerset’s housing policy has been the subject of a successful legal challenge for a number of years. Eric Pickles has now stepped in to review the position.

3 years of uncertainty…

North Somerset’s Core Strategy was originally adopted in April 2012.

Much of the strategy remains operative but, following a successful High Court challenge by Bristol University, its policy relating to housing supply was remitted back to the Planning Inspector for re-examination. He found that the original Inspector’s conclusion, that the Council’s target to deliver 14,000 dwellings during the plan period did make sufficient allowance for ‘non-employment led demand’, was flawed.

The Planning Inspector’s report made a number of proposals to render the policy suitable for adoption, the most significant being an increase in the housing delivery target from 13,400 to 20,985 over the plan period.

Needless to say, the Council does not agree, arguing that the report:

• places too much pressure on the authority to increase the housing target to an unsustainable level; and
• does not adequately address how the existing housing backlog should be dealt with.

Eric Pickles (as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) has agreed to a request from the Council to review and consider the Inspector’s conclusions to ensure that national policy has been applied and reflected correctly.

And so it continues…

Whilst it will be interesting to see whether the Secretary of State agrees with the Inspector, his findings may only be determinative for North Somerset in the short term: progress is now well under way for the Joint Strategic Planning Strategy between all four West of England planning authorities and the Council’s housing target will no doubt be subject to further scrutiny throughout this review.