Hi everyone,

Thank you for the continued growth of our Petition.  Now at over 4400 signatures!  We are aiming for 5000 asap to send a message to Angela Glass, Chair of the Planning Policy Committee, so do keep sharing.

Here's the link to get a copy of our newly-created flyer for anyone who wants to print off and place somewhere or just share online.  Do email saynotochawtonparkfarm@gmail.com with any questions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EQW4vBZ_DCDxRdEQ88v63LQrcQZb-ocX/view?usp=sharing

The Campaign Group was delighted to meet with Damian Hinds MP the other day and we wanted you to know how it went.

He understands the issues that we face in East Hampshire where the 57% of our area which is in the South Downs National Park (SDNP) will take only some of the housing numbers assessed as its “need” therefore putting pressure on the 43% of East Hampshire outside it. Indeed he has spoken in Parliament about the need for separate assessments of housing needs for land inside a National Park and that outside it, as well as meeting with and writing to Ministers. Speech extracts are at the end of this piece. He revisited these statements in subsequent correspondence with a number of individual constituents, where he set out the problems caused by the SDNP : 

• Housing need is assessed on the basis of the East Hampshire district as a whole but that assessed need then has to be heavily disproportionately implemented in the areas of East Hampshire which are outside the SDNP
•  The current approach has two detrimental effects: (1) over-development in the areas outside the SDNP (creating a risk of urbanisation); and (2) increasing unaffordability of housing in the area inside the SDNP.

Damian told us he believes that if separate housing needs assessments were undertaken it would mean that the areas outside the SDNP would not have to deliver unmet need from the area of East Hants which is inside the SDNP.
He also told us that he has been working for some time to make the case to Government for why areas, such as ours, that are bisected by a National Park boundary should have their housing numbers reflect this unusual situation. And his hope is that the Government’s upcoming planning reforms will adjust the system so that unmet need from the area of East Hampshire within the SDNP does not have to be met in the areas of East Hampshire which are outside the SDNP.

In terms of the planning system as it currently stands, Damian told us he believes EHDC is looking at whether it can use an ‘alternative approach’ to the standard method of assessing housing need, taking into account the exceptional circumstances of our area. EHDC said in Jan 2022 that they ‘will continue to explore alternatives to the standard method’ and “A decision on whether to progress an alternative calculation of housing numbers is currently unknown, but will be guided by the evidence base for the emerging local plan.”

In Jan 2022 EHDC told us they ‘will continue to explore alternatives to the standard method’ and “A decision on whether to progress an alternative calculation of housing numbers is currently unknown, but will be guided by the evidence base for the emerging local plan.”

We also discussed with Damian the correspondence between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Leader of EHDC, which says that assessing housing need is only a starting point and does not provide a target; that Councils decide their own housing requirement once they have considered their ability to meet their own needs in their area.

We agreed to stay in touch on how we might support his continuing efforts to make the case to Government that areas, such as ours, with virtually unique circumstances, need special consideration.

It was agreed that the Campaign Group should arrange a meeting with the Director of Regeneration and Planning at EHDC given that to date we’ve not had replies to our letters to him and the Leader of EHDC, and we sent a meeting request on 14th Feb to which we have had no response.

Quotes from Damian’s Speeches - October and December 2020
October 2020
My third and final point is indeed about national parks. The local authority that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) is bisected by a national park. If a housing needs assessment is made on the basis of the local authority area but it then has to be heavily disproportionately implemented in the area outside the national park, that causes two sets of problems. First, inside the park, in areas such as Petersfield and Liss, housing will become more and more unaffordable over time. Also, just outside the national park, in places such as Alton and Four Marks, there will be a great deal of pressure and it will be difficult to keep up in terms of service provision. If two different parts of an area have very different constraints, a separate housing needs assessment should be made for each one.

December 2020
The third and important point I want to make is about national parks. I do not know whether there are others here who represent national park areas. There is the particular issue where part of a constituency is in a national park and parts are outside, so there are very different constraints in how land can be used. There is a danger that if a housing target or requirement is set based on the entire area, containing both national park and non-national park, with different constraints on what can be done in each part, the result will be the insufficient creation of new homes inside the national park and potentially too much on the edge.
A piece of work came out from Nationwide a few weeks ago that suggested that house prices in national parks have something like a 20% house price premium compared with those outside. In a constituency such as mine that is a huge amount of money. The Office for National Statistics is doing some further work, so hopefully we will be able to develop those figures. It is also important for the areas just outside the national park. In my constituency, that means areas such as Alton and Four Marks, where there is potentially a disproportionate amount of development in the border zone that can put considerable strain on infrastructure and provision of service. It can then be difficult to ensure adequate provision.”