Persimmon Homes (Anglia) prides itself on building market homes that are more affordable by those on average household incomes as well as playing a significant role in delivering affordable rent and low cost home ownership tenures for those households whose needs are not met by the market. Persimmon Homes would support an appropriate housing requirement uplift to ensure delivery of the full affordable housing need to compensate for lack of delivery on small and unviable sites. Increasing the housing requirement would in itself increase competition and improve affordability of market housing.

If a higher affordable housing percentage is adopted as proposed under Policy 5, this could have an effect on the viability of some sites. In these cases, the policy should be clear that flexibility on percentage and tenure will be accommodated where there is reasonable justification as part of normal negotiations with Officers without the need for rigorous open book assessments which create uncertainty, expense and delay in delivering housing.

Persimmon Homes (Anglia) also question the justification for applying 33% affordable housing across the plan area, except in Norwich City Centre where the requirement is for 28%. As highlighted in Paragraph 241 of the Strategy Document, the Strategic Housing Market Assessment 2017 identifies a need for 28% affordable housing as a percentage of the total housing need. We therefore question the justification for introducing a higher affordable housing requirement across the plan area.