Only Three Villages Near Stratford Keep Full Neighbourhood Plan Protection

Only three of the 32 neighbourhood plans in the Stratford-on-Avon district, Long Marston, Quinton and Tysoe, still get the extra protection national policy gives against housing schemes they don’t allow, the district council has decided. Its Cabinet endorsed the finding on Monday 2 November, in a revised planning statement that applies until the South Warwickshire Local Plan is in place.

Neighbourhood plans are written by parish and town councils, voted on by residents and used to decide planning applications. But the district can’t show a five-year supply of land for housing (it has 2.43 years’ worth), so national rules lean towards approving new homes. A neighbourhood plan only keeps its extra weight if it was made in the last five years and sets aside enough land to meet a housing figure for its area.

Which plans pass, and which don’t

The council’s Cabinet papers found 21 plans, including Stratford-upon-Avon’s own (December 2018), are more than five years old. Six more recent ones, including Henley-in-Arden and Fenny Compton, set aside no land for housing.

That left five. To test them, the council shared out the district’s housing need of 1,084 homes a year by population, which gives each area an indicative figure over five years: Southam 330 homes, Tanworth-in-Arden 130, Quinton 110, Long Marston 70 and Tysoe 50.

• Pass: Long Marston, Quinton and Tysoe. Long Marston’s and Quinton’s reserve sites, alongside the big growth area at neighbouring Long Marston Airfield, are judged enough, as are Tysoe’s two allocated sites and its reserve site for up to 16 homes.
• Fail: Southam, whose one self-build site couldn’t take that many homes in five years, and Tanworth-in-Arden, whose two small local-needs sites aren’t enough.

Failing doesn’t make a plan irrelevant. The council says its other policies, such as design rules, still count, and passing doesn’t mean every conflicting scheme will be refused. But the council warns that, for housing schemes, the village boundaries drawn in plans that don’t pass are likely to carry “very limited weight”.

What happens next

Protection runs out five years after a plan is made, so Tysoe’s ends in February 2027, Quinton’s in February 2028 and Long Marston’s in April 2029. On Monday 7 December the Cabinet is due to agree how it will give parish councils a housing number for new or updated plans. The wider housing land supply debate is covered in our earlier story.

Alex Harrington

Alex Harrington grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and runs What's up, Stratford? as an independent guide to the town.