Infrastructure costs for the Local plan in Hart District, Hampshire, England
We Heart Hart has been asked to present to Greywell Parish Council about the Hart Council’s Local Plan tomorrow, 26 May 2015. The presentation we will give is available for download below:
A30-A327-Blackbushes Road Junction Improvements
It has been reported that the estimated costs of the second phase of improvements to the A30/A327/Blackbushes Road junction near Hartley Wintney have increased three-fold from £0.5m to £1.5m. This does not bode well for the infrastructure cost estimates and plans for the new town at Winchfield being tested by Hart District Council.
We have already reported that Hart Council have done no work to evaluate the costs of alternative development strategies for the District and have no idea how much funding might be raised from developers for each development strategy.
We Heart Hart’s back of the envelope calculations (based on published figures for the costs of similar types of improvements to roads, rail, power, sewage etc.) show that the infrastructure costs of a new town could be around £150m. 4,000 houses might be expected to deliver around £40m of funding from developers, so this would leave a gap of £110m over and above the existing £78m funding gap in Hart’s Infrastructure Delivery Schedule.
£78m Funding Gap
We Heart Hart called for a proper infrastructure plan to be included in the Local Plan as part of our 5-point plan for change. Surely the experience with a relatively simple road junction improvement make this more important than ever.
If you would like to join the campaign to improve our Local Plan, please sign and share our petition:
We Heart Hart has submitted an objection to the Hop Garden Road (Owens Farm) development in Hook.
The full details of the submission can be found here:
The summary of the submission is presented below:
The purpose of this submission by the We ♥ Hart Campaign is to oppose the specific unnecessary development proposed at Hop Garden Road in Hook and demonstrate to other developers who may wish to put forward speculative proposals for the over-development of the district that they will face formidable opposition to their plans. Hart District is facing a scale of development that is against the wishes of its residents and in contradiction to stated Government policy to place planning decisions in the hands of local people.
Let me remind you of the Prime Minister’s words in 2012, taken from this Telegraph article:
He said: “I care deeply about our countryside and environment. Our vision is one where we give communities much more say, much more control. The fear people have in villages is the great big housing estate being plonked down from above.
“Our reforms will make it easier for communities to say ‘we are not going to have big plonking housing estate landing next to the village, but we would like 10, 20, 30 extra houses and we would like them built in this way, to be built for local people’.”
Mr Cameron, who was being interviewed in his Oxfordshire constituency, denied that the reforms would lead to large swathes of the countryside being built on.
He told BBC1’s Countryfile programme: “Here we are in west Oxfordshire one of the most beautiful parts of our country, set in some of England’s finest countryside. I would no more put that at risk than I would put at risk my own family.
“I care deeply about our countryside and environment. Our vision is one where we give communities much more say, much more control.”
We ♥ Hart object to this proposed development and any future speculative proposals on the grounds summarised below:
You can help by going along to the appeal, to be held between Tuesday 12th May and Thursday 14th May, 10am to 5pm. The first day starts at 10am and probably through to 5pm at Hart Council’s Civic Offices, Harlington Way, GU51 4AE, Fleet. More details here.
Protect our green fields
We know that progress on the Local Plan for Hart District is slow and that it is not going in the direction many would like to see. We thought it was time to outline an alternative approach, and see if Hart Council and the candidates for election will change their minds. Below we set out a five point plan for change:
1. Create a Medium Growth Scenario
We need to work on creating a reasonable, alternative “medium growth” scenario to go alongside the current “high growth” scenario. We have posted earlier about why we believe the SHMA is flawed (as shown here and here) and is forcing us to build too much – 7,534 houses in Hart plus 3,100 extra from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor. Hart District Council should work with Rushmoor and Surrey Heath work to create a joint new, “policy on” lower housing requirement for the whole Housing Market Area that:
The more realistic assumptions above could reduce the overall housing “need” for the combination of Hart, Rushmoor and Surrey Heath by around 8,000 dwellings from 23,600 to 15,790. We believe this would relieve the pressure on all three districts, and in particular, reduce the pressure on Hart to take the unmet needs of Surrey Heath and Rushmoor Boroughs.
2. Create a formal brownfield option and invite a competition to design the art of the possible
We have already demonstrated that Hart has no effective brownfield strategy. Hart Council should create a new, formal “reasonable suitable alternative” option of meeting the housing need solely through brownfield development. This should involve the following:
This could be done in conjunction with the neighbouring authorities of Surrey Heath and Rushmoor.
3. Do the work and consult upon the additional elements of a proper Local Plan
Hart District Council needs to work on the other elements that should make up a local plan such as education, retail, transport, employment, meeting the needs of the ageing population and other infrastructure. Hart should conduct suitable, high level strategic analysis to build an evidence base to answer the following questions:
For each option and scenario Hart should outline the total cost of infrastructure spending required and the likely contribution from developers so that a proper financial model can be created.
4. Consider the Environment and Landscape
Fourth, Hart should conduct the other studies that are required to update the evidence base such as the landscape character assessment and an assessment of the potential damage caused to our wildlife by over-development.
Once this work has been completed, Hart District Council should carry out a new Regulation 18 consultation on the above that includes both a medium and high growth scenario and the properly evaluated options for meeting the housing need including the new proposed “brownfield” option. It would be preferable if the current “Option 4 – New town at Winchfield” (or indeed a new settlement anywhere in Hart) was dropped as an option. It will be important for the council to step up its engagement efforts during this period to ensure that a much larger proportion of the public responds to the consultation.
After the results of the consultation is known, firm up a preferred growth scenario and delivery option(s) to work up into a more detailed Local Plan and conduct an exercise to ensure democratic endorsement of the preferred option. This could take the form of a district wide referendum or a series of Parish Polls, followed by a Regulation 19 consultation before submission to the inspector.
5. Fix the management and governance problems
Finally, Hart need to work on the setting up the Local Plan project properly and address the governance deficiencies. There is clearly no properly defined scope or deliverables as the recent questions to the Planning Inspector demonstrate. Moreover, the timeline keeps slipping as we were originally supposed to have been consulted on a draft plan in March 2015, and it is clear that Hart is nowhere near that milestone even though it has dropped that consultation from its plan. This indicates the Local Plan project is not properly resourced. The Council needs to appoint a suitably qualified, experienced project manager, follow a properly recognised project management methodology such as Prince 2 and invest in the proper resources required to carry out the project on time to proper quality standards.
Given the prior failure of the earlier Local Plan at inspection and the current hopeless path the new Plan is taking, it is also clear that the governance of the Local Plan is deficient, with power effectively concentrated into the hands of only two people. The Council needs to explore ways of separating powers so that there is better transparency and accountability on both the “officer” and “member” sides. We suggest that the project should report to the joint chief executive who is not also in charge of planning; that roles of council leader and portfolio head for planning are carried out by two separate people and the council members elect a more proactive and capable chairman. This should lead to a wider range of opinions to be heard and appropriate checks and balances to be implemented.
It remains to be seen if our Parliamentary candidates or our Hart District Council candidates will endorse this plan.
If you would like to join the campaign to change Hart’s mind, please sign and share our petition.
We Heart Hart were delighted to be invited to speak at tonight’s parish council meeting at Crondall.
The presentation went well with lots of interest in the Hart Local Plan and how we might persuade Hart Council to think again, particularly to focus on brownfield development and fight off the demand for us to build 3,100 extra houses for Surrey Heath and Rushmoor Borough Councils. Lots of interest in our leaflet too.
A copy of the presentation and leaflet are available for download below.
£78m Funding Gap
In a piece of bad news from last Thursday’s council meeting, Hart District Council admitted that it had no idea how much the infrastructure for the local plan would cost, nor how much it would raise from developers to pay for it, despite sitting on an existing funding gap of £78m. The detailed questions and answers can be found here. This comes alongside the revelation that Hampshire County Council has a £1.9bn infrastructure funding deficit, and Rushmoor Borough Council, £80m.
If you would like to ask Hart to think again, please sign and share our petition:
We have posted before our estimate of an £150m cost of infrastructure for a new town at Winchfield, which would lead to the existing £78m funding gap being extended to £188m. We asked questions about this at the council meeting on 26 March and received some staggeringly vague answers. New analysis from Hart indicates that infrastructure costs could escalate to £300m.
First we asked how much money would be raised from developers. Answer: we don’t know. And they also didn’t know how much the funding would vary according to the development strategy adopted.
Hart doesn’t know how much cash it will raise from developers
We also asked about how the infrastructure costs would vary according to the development strategy adopted. Answer: no idea.
Hart doesn’t know how much it will cost to deliver the infrastructure
Finally, we asked if Hart understood the impact on our infrastructure of the massive development due to take place in neighbouring districts. Answer: We don’t know.
Hart doesn’t not know the impact of development in neighbouring districts
We find it quite staggering that Hart as got as far as settling upon a preferred development strategy without understanding what infrastructure will be required, how much it will cost nor how it will be funded, especially as there is already a £78m funding gap.
It is fairly self evident that the infrastructure required for brownfield development will be very much less than that required for a new town.
It has now transpired that Hampshire as a whole has an infrastructure funding deficit of £1.9bn and Rushmoor has an £80m shortfall.
There’s another Hart District Council meeting next week on 26 March at 7pm. We Heart Hart has tabled some questions about the planned housing density, planning for an ageing population and infrastructure costs.
Deadline for submission of your own questions is tomorrow at noon.
Please feel free to use the download below as inspiration for your own questions.
Answers to our previous questions have now been published on here and here on Hart District Council’s website.
Answers to the questions we put have now been published in draft minutes on the Hart Council website.
There is a potential infrastructure funding gap of up to £188m arising from the plan for a new town in Hart District. Much has been made of the infrastructure benefits that could be brought to the district by building a new town, however, it is not widely known that there is already a £78m funding gap for infrastructure. This does not include the infrastructure costs of a new town, nor the expected funding from a developer. We might expect Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding – or S106 – to yield £40m from the developer, but the infrastructure costs of a new town could be up to £150m (not including costs of improving healthcare services), meaning that if Hart were to proceed with this plan, we would have a funding gap of £188m. Note that new analysis from Hart District Council indicates that costs could increase to over £300m.
This surely leaves the idea of a new town in tatters. Indeed it calls into question the whole idea of building an extra 7,500 homes in Hart, wherever they are built because there simply isn’t enough money to fund road improvements, new schools, new healthcare facilities or improvements to railway stations. One has to ask why the council are pushing through this idea when the costs are outrageous, the funding isn’t available and the results will be devastating for the local area?
If you would like the Government and Hart to think again, please sign the We Heart Hart (aka We ♥ Hart and We Love Hart) petition.
Of course the £150m cost of infrastructure for the new town is my estimate, but it is clear whatever the actual number there is a considerable gap to be closed between the cost of the infrastructure required for the Local Plan and the funding available.
The detail of the calculations to back up these numbers is shown below.
First, here is the table from the Hart Infrastructure Delivery Schedule:
This shows that there is an existing gap of £78m. Some say that even this is an under-estimate. Crucially it does not include any infrastructure for the proposed new town: no new schools, no road improvements in that area and no improvements to the railways. And it does not attribute a cost to healthcare improvements like doctors surgeries or expansion of hospitals.
We might expect around £40m from developing 4,000 new houses that have not yet received planning permission in the local plan. This is based on only 2,400 houses being eligible for a CIL charge as 40% of what is built has to be “affordable” and does not attract a CIL charge. If each house is 95 sq m, and the charge per sq m is £175, then this results in CIL funding of £40m. If they use S106 instead of CIL, the yield can be expected to be broadly similar.
Note that CIL money has to be used for specific projects outlined in the Regulation 123 list. None of the projects on this list relate to building a new town. So all of that money raised will have to towards funding the existing gap. This leaves a gap of £38m before even considering the costs of infrastructure for the new town in Winchfield or anywhere else.
A back of the envelope calculation suggests that the proposed Hart new town will need around £150m of spending on infrastructure.
Hart / Winchfield New Town Infrastructure Costs
Of course, the road widening costs above will mean the destruction of miles of ancient hedgerow which is highly undesirable. Many of the other works would be very detrimental to the environment and the rural feel of Hart.
The sources for these number are as follows:
Please download a poster: https://wehearthart.co.uk/home/get-involved/
Sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/we-hart
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHeartHart/
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Extra Daily Journeys
5,000 extra houses in a new town in Hart District will dramatically increase congestion all over the district, including Fleet and Church Crookham with 10’s of thousands of extra journeys per day. It is clear that those councillors who think they are getting a free-ride from a new town in Winchfield need to think again and campaign for fewer houses to be built overall.
If you think the council should think again, please sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/we-hart
Hart District Council have been asked by Winchfield Action Group (WAG), as part of their Neighbourhood Planning process to provide some figures on the current road usage on roads in and around the proposed new town at Winchfield and for an assessment of the impact on neighbouring areas. Astonishingly, it seems Hart doesn’t have any traffic monitoring data.
Helpfully, the appendices in the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) give an analysis of the travel to work patterns of Hart residents and the Department of Transport has conducted a National Travel Survey (NTS) that has helped the We Heart Hart (aka We ♥ Hart and We Love Hart) campaign to calculate the impact of all of these extra houses and extra cars.
The SHMA says that we can expect around 2.5 people per household, the SHMA appendix gives a split of how Hart residents travel to work and the NTS says that work related travel accounts for only 18% of journeys. Of course people need to go shopping, play sports, visit friends and relatives, go to clubs and societies and ferry around their children and so on.
Using the 2011 numbers it is possible come up with the extra journeys 5,000 extra houses will generate. Of course, these numbers will need to be doubled if they go ahead with the new town and Hart has to act as a sink for the 3,100 extra houses that Surrey Heath and Rushmoor say they cannot build. This is shown below.
Extra Journeys Arising from New Town in Hart
Using this data, you can come up with an estimate of the impact of all these extra journeys will have in terms of increased traffic in Fleet, Church Crookham, Hartley Wintney and Hook because of the routes people will have to follow to get to those destinations. Of course, there will be also extra train journeys, giving rise to 775 extra commuters going to London each day without even estimating the other non-work related journeys:
Impact on Fleet, Church Crookham, Hartley Wintney and Hook
This is of course a very rough and ready estimate, and Hart will no doubt have to find a way of doing some better modelling. But this gives an indication of the impact which is far from trivial.
Surely it is very important that the impact of building 5,000 houses in a new town, or more than 10,000 if Surrey Heath and Rushmoor get their way, is properly assessed by the council before they finalise the local plan. Not only that there are going to be thousands of new houses in neighbouring areas like Basingstoke and Deane, Reading and Waverley. All of these houses are bound to increase the traffic even further in Hart too.
Of course everyone has sympathy for the level of development Fleet, Church Crookham, Crookham Village and Hook have had to endure over the past few years. But it is clear that building a new town in Winchfield will only add to the problem of congestion for those areas and the councillors who think they are getting a free-ride from a new town need to think again and start campaigning for fewer houses to be built in Hart.
Download a poster: https://wehearthart.co.uk/home/get-involved/
Sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/we-hart
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHeartHart/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeHeartHart
Hart becomes sink for 3,100 houses from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor
A new town in Hart District, whether in Winchfield or anywhere else, will open up Hart to be a sink for 3,100 overflow houses from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor Borough Councils. Yet Hart District Council’s strategy for the Local Plan has set us on the path for a new town which makes this inevitable and will destroy our green fields and wildlife habitats and clog up all of our infrastructure.
If you disagree with this strategy please sign the We Love Hart (We ♥ Hart) petition.
The Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA), calls for Hart to build a total of around 7,500 houses in the district up to 2031. Our neighbouring districts, Surrey Heath and Rushmoor also have demanding targets and are saying that they cannot build all of their own allocation in their districts. So, they want to pass over an extra 3,100 or so houses (1,700 from Rushmoor and 1,400 from Surrey Heath) to Hart that will push our target up to around 10,600 houses. See answers to questions here, page 17.
In their housing options paper the council says that we would need to deliver 1,800-2,400 houses on a new settlement (Option 4). However, the Barratts New Town proposal document says that such a new settlement would have capacity for 5,000 houses, more than twice the size of Elvetham Heath, and could start building as early as 2017. This leaves a convenient surplus of around 3,000 dwellings in the new settlement that could be used to fill the shortfall from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor.
The We Heart Hart campaign believes this is a grave strategic error on the part of Hart Council because they are following a policy that means there is a real risk we will have to build even more houses in Hart and concrete over our green fields.
The impact of this could be enormous: