Lanpro offer their support to the concept of village clusters, agreeing that there is a need to allocate new housing in accessible, rural locations to help support sustainable patterns of growth. However, we do not support the significant amount of growth to be directed to village clusters, potentially allowing a significant number of new homes (1200, 15% of all new allocations) to be located in small settlements in the rural area of South Norfolk (outside of the old Norwich Policy Area). Other small sites are identified within the rural parts of Broadland. Without knowing where the South Norfolk sites are and whether they are accessible and sustainable in all respects, we are concerned that the approach is neither sustainable or compatible with the objectives in relation to tackling climate change.

We consider that a more sustainable approach, that would be in line with the overall objectives and vision set out for the Growth Strategy would be to allocate 400 of the South Norfolk 1200 to cluster villages and key service centres within the old NPA parts of South Norfolk and 500 as the first phase of a new settlement at Hethel in the Cambridge – Norwich Tech corridor. There is scope for a some more rural dispersal to contribute to the vitality of small rural villages and therefore, the remaining 300 should only be allocated to small cluster villages in the more rural parts of South Norfolk (outside the old NPA) where there is walkable access to a primary school and good public transport links to other key services. Any Broadland allocations outside of the old NPA should also only remain if the same applies.

Allocating 500 of the homes to a new settlement at Hethel would also provide land to expand the opportunity for hi-tech engineering jobs within the growth corridor. In this location the homes would help to ensure that the plan “will support growth of a diverse low carbon economy which will compete globally through its world class knowledge-intensive jobs in the Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor” (paragraph 108).

They will also:
“strengthen Greater Norwich’s role as a key part of the national economy with the Cambridge Norwich Tech corridor becoming an increasingly important axis linking to two other nationally significant growth corridors” (Delivery Statement page 36).

The current strategy allows significant dispersal to small rural village clusters and without further explanation and justification, we are concerned that this may not make a positive contribution to these key threads of the plan. It could have negative impacts in terms of increasing the number of private car and other journeys and it will place greater demand on small local schools and services. These demands are more difficult and costly to address within a spread of small rural villages rather than within a new settlement where social infrastructure can be properly planned and funded from the outset with corresponding economies of scale.

As currently proposed, the settlement hierarchy presents an unambitious variation on the previous Joint Core Strategy (JCS) with an unjustified increase in rural dispersal. The draft plan states that 82% of the new housing requirement to 2038 is made up of existing JCS allocations that have been carried forward (paragraph 156). This means that including the proposed uplift on existing allocations, 36,503 homes out of a total housing figure of 44,343 are carried forward.