Object

Representation ID: 703

Received: 29/06/2007

Respondent: Mr J Needs & Aston Unit Trust

Agent: Sellwood Planning

The policy fails to provide adequate Core Strategy advice on the Council's general approach to the identification of land for housing. As such, the policy as drafted is unsound. The proposed policy could be made more sound by setting out an allocation sequence. The modified policy could read as follows (first bullet point unchanged)

"The Council will meet the district's housing provision identifying sites in the following priority order
- the reuse of sustainably located previously developed land and within the three main urban areas
- sustainable greenfield sites on the periphery of Rayleigh, Rochford/Ashingdon and Hockley/Hawkwell
- small scale, sustainable previously developed sites in smaller settlements
- small scale, sustainable greenfield sites in smaller settlements".

Whilst PPS12 states that Core Strategies should not be site specific in terms of housing allocations, PPS12 (para 2.10) does recommend that Core Strategies should indicate broad locations for delivering housing growth. In the case of the Rochford Core Strategy, to be compliant with PPS12, the document should indicate the broad locations for growth around the periphery of Rayleigh, Rochford and Hockley in accordance with "General Development Locations Policy 2".

In particular, this should show the eastern edge of Rayleigh (but outside the strategic buffer) as a broad location for housing growth due to its highly sustainable characteriestics.

It would also be better to split the reference to avoiding the over intensification of smaller previously developed sites into a separate policy.