Test Valley homes: Government announces 75 per cent increase

The government announced last week that councils in England would be given mandatory housing targets to help contribute to the overall number of 370,000 new homes to be built each year.

The new targets set out by the government are aimed to boost housebuilding in areas most in need.

In Test Valley, the number of homes needed per year has gone up from 524 to 921, which is an increase of 397 or 75 per cent. In the south of the borough, around Romsey, 396 homes are needed per year, which is up from 225. 

Test Valley Borough Council has just finished consulting on the latest stage of the draft local plan which included 1,070 new homes at Velmore Farm and 340 south of Ganger Farm. 

Romsey brewery site (Image: Newsquest)

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The increase will put more pressure on planners to permit more housing, such as the recently refused application for more than 300 homes in Halterworth Lane. 

Reacting to the news Cllr Mark Cooper, who chairs the southern area planning committee, said: "Trying to allocate the current housing figure of 225 in southern Test Valley is very difficult. Remember this is an annual figure for the whole of the plan period up to 2040. To then be told that the Government is demanding not 225 dwellings a year but 396 dwellings every year in southern Test Valley - and 921 yearly across the whole of Test Valley - is devastating news. 

“We have large areas of environmentally sensitive land, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Sites of Interest for Nature Conservation (SINCs), woodland and high quality agricultural land all of which are constantly being squeezed by the voracious demands of the development industry. We have no brownfield sites that could be used other than the Brewery Site in Romsey which has permission for 211 dwellings. 

“So we're talking about 396 dwellings on our mainly pristine southern Test Valley countryside every year, year after year up to 2040.

Mark Cooper (Image: Newsquest)

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He added: “What's more depressing is the fact that if we don't deliver the housing numbers demanded of us we will have sites imposed on us by the Government's Planning Inspectorate. That's what happened a while back when the sites along Cupernham fell like dominoes because for a short while we couldn't meet our five-year housing land supply. Effectively, it could mean that housing site allocations are taken out of local hands and are imposed on us by a centralised command economy."

Romsey and Southampton North MP Caroline Nokes said: “The close to doubling of the housing numbers required in Test Valley has come as a bitter blow to all of us who have worked hard over the years to make sure housing numbers in the Borough are kept at sustainable levels. TVBC has been left in an invidious position by the Government, with the Borough Local Plan at a stage where the borough will now be vulnerable to speculative development by companies like Gladman.

Caroline Nokes (Image: Contributed)

“We all know that applications like the one at Halterworth were in the wrong location, ignored the progress the council had made on the BLP, rides roughshod over local people and ignores the importance of retaining gaps between settlements.”

Ms Nokes added: “The formula the Government has applied ignores all the hard work TVBC has done to date. I raised the importance of resolving issues like the Brewery site in the King’s Speech debate. The Government needs to sort out how they can enable brownfield sites before earmarking greenfield sites in Southern Hampshire for massive development.

“Serious questions remain about the ability of the housing sector to deliver on these plans, a point I will make to the Minister. This could mean land blighted for decades, with planning permission forced on local councils through appeals, but no means of actually developing them. It is a lose lose situation.”