RYDE TOWN COUNCIL OFFICER REPORT




Committee:


Place and Neighbourhood Committee


Date:


Tuesday, 28 June 2022


Report Author:


Chris Turvey – Place and Neighbourhood Officer


Report Title:


Assessing Housing Numbers for Ryde Town Area.


Context:


The Report is for Noting Only

  1. Housing Need


    The standard method for calculating housing needs on the Isle of Wight results in a Local Housing Need Figure (LHNF) 665 dwellings per annum. The standard method is a stepped process set out in Planning Practice Guidance.


    The LHNF is derived from the 2014 household projections for the Isle of Wight. The base figure is subject to an uplift to address affordability and subject to a cap which limits the increases an individual local authority can face. How this is calculated depends on the current status of relevant strategic policies for housing.


    Given that the current Local Plan was adopted in March 2012 (and therefore more than five years ago) the cap on the housing figure is applied at 40% above the demographic baseline set in Step 1 of 532. This comes to 743.


    As the capped figure is greater than the base figure (step 1), the standard method-based LHNA for the Isle of Wight is 665 dwellings per annum (DPA) or 9,975 dwellings over the Plan period of 2022-37. This provides the minimum number of dwellings that the IWC should plan for over this period.


  2. Island Planning Strategy Proposal


    The IWC planning dept have already had 2 attempts to lower the housing figures which were rejected. The figure in Policy H1 below has been accepted for the purposes of getting the IPS through the process and becoming the new Planning Strategy for the Island.


    Policy H1 (Planning for housing delivery) states that “the council is planning for 7,290 net additional dwellings over the plan period (2023 to 2038), at an average of 486 dwellings per year”. This reflects a policy-on position noted earlier in the DIPS 2021 that the Island has not, historically, been able to meet its objectively assessed housing needs in full.


    Failure to meet these DPA targets will put the Island back to square 1 with regard to control over where we can build.


  3. Assessing Housing needs for Ryde Town Council Area


    The Ryde Town Council Position Statement attempted to interpolate housing numbers for the Ryde Town Council area using the Housing Needs Survey DPA and the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA).


    The figures given in the HNA above are from the latest report which is yet to be adopted. Unfortunately, there is no comparable latest SHLAA and in any event the SHLAA does not include developments which already have approval such as Pennyfeathers. This makes it very difficult to compare the 2 and extract accurate figures just for the Ryde area.

    The map below shows the area referred to in the HNA which is the Ryde key regeneration area. This area includes Brading, Bembridge, Nettlestone and Seaview, Fishbourne, St Helens and Havenstreet.


    Plan showing areas defined in the HNA



    The Isle of Wight Council have commissioned a new SHLAA, and the new report should be available shortly.

  4. AirBnB


Planning law allows residential property to be let on long term rental without the need for changes to planning use class C3. Short term lets, defined as less than 14 days, fall into class C1, and do require a change of use class if that use is not ancillary to the main use.

This means that a landlord could, for instance, let his property out long term for the two thirds of the year on long let and as an ancillary use do AirBnB for the summer perfectly legally.