An inspector calls today (Tuesday 22 October). Planning inspector Laura Graham is due in Brighton to start looking at the City Plan to test whether it’s sound.
This looks likely to boil down to a question of whether Brighton and Hove City Council intends to build enough houses and flats over the next 17 years.
What counts as enough is a matter of some debate and the government has a view on the matter but not everyone will agree with it or like it.
Depending on the planning inspector’s verdict, the City Plan could allow for about 2,000 new homes in multistorey blocks at Brighton Marina.
Among the other sites each with hundreds of new homes in the pipeline are Preston Barracks, Shoreham Harbour, Hove Station and Toads Hole Valley.
The inspector is not looking at detailed designs. Those will come later, if and when specific planning applications are submitted.
Local planning officials and councillors will continue to decide individual planning applications.
Their decisions, though, will be guided by the City Plan. And at this stage it seems safe to say that it points towards a growing number of taller buildings.
Need
The council hopes to keep these confined to a limited number of places, such as the Marina and the New England Quarter and London Road.
Not every developer sees things the same way.
The inspector has written to the council setting out some of the matters that will help her to decide whether the City Plan is sound.
She said: “Is the range of 16,000 to 20,000 an accurate reflection of the full, objectively assessed need for housing?
“If so, the City Plan’s housing target of 11,300 new homes, albeit expressed as a minimum, is a significant shortfall against assessed need.”
If meeting this need would do more harm than good in a town with beautiful Regency squares and terraces and a thriving tourist trade, the housing shortfall may be justifiable.
The inspector has questioned the protection being given to green land on the edge of town – or “urban fringe” sites.
The council hopes that offering up Toads Hole Valley in Hove for at least 700 homes will be enough.
Alas and alack, there were very many more who submitted criticisms and thoughts on the City Plan. But only those who responded to the final online consultation count for the purposes of this examination.
The inspector should have a view of all responses.
Alas and alack, there were very many more who submitted criticisms and thoughts on the City Plan. But only those who responded to the final online consultation count for the purposes of this examination.
The inspector should have a view of all responses.
It is Toad’s Hole Valley. One toad. Judy Middleton’s Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade is very interesting on the nineteenth-century origins of this name.
It is Toad’s Hole Valley. One toad. Judy Middleton’s Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade is very interesting on the nineteenth-century origins of this name.