Hart Council has published a new land supply calculation that shows we have 6.3 years land supply. The document can be found here.
This is good news as it shows that Hart can still retain a degree of control over granting planning permission to voracious developers up to the point it finally gets a Local Plan in place.
However, there are a number of interesting points coming out of the new calculation:
- In the most recent year 2015-16, 705 new dwellings were completed, nearly double the annual requirement expressed in the current SHMA
- Hart are using 382 dwelling per annum, for a total of 8,022 houses over the planning period compared to the 7,534 agreed figure for the SHMA. They say this is to respond to some criticism made in the Hop Garden Road appeal, but we are concerned about it, especially as the new SHMA should reduce the overall requirement.
- A total of 4,473 houses have been built or permitted since 2011.