Comment

Representation ID: 21924

Received: 24/03/2020

Respondent: Horsford Parish Council

It is proposed that Horsford falls into the remit of Village Clusters with regard to the Settlement Hierarchy.
Page 47 of the Final Draft Strategy states:
Table 7 Housing growth 2018 to 2038 (figures rounded)
Village Clusters:
- Homes 2018: 46100
- Homes 2038 (and increase): 50124 (+4024)
- Increase: 9%
- % of Total Housing Growth: 9%

Horsford are accepting of the one site identified, Policy GNLP0264, as a preferred option providing 30-40 new homes in the cluster. However, we have concerns about the access road from this development onto Horsbeck Way, which just moves the Dog Lane access issues one road further along.
We are in agreement with the GNLP statement that NO other sites within Horsford should be considered for allocation. This is justified by the following statistics:
394 homes already with existing planning permission on various sites, plus the recent uplift of 45 homes on the Kingfisher Meadow Site passed for development on 8 January 2020 and the additional 40 on the new allocation Policy GNLP0264, Dog Lane, Horsford. These 479 homes equate to 11.9% of the 9% total housing growth. When you consider there are 20 villages that fall within the proposed Village Cluster, Horsford have delivered a total quantity of homes way above and beyond what is expected of a service village, in comparison to other proposed cluster villages like Blofield Heath (107 dwellings) Gt & Little Plumstead (140 dwellings) and Coltishall, Horstead with Stanninghall and Belaugh (70 dwellings). GNLP states that “The Towards a Strategy document identifies 2,000 dwellings in total should be provided between all the “village clusters”.” Horsford have delivered a huge proportion 23.9% of this total, which is not that far from 1/3 of the expectation!
Paragraph 132 claims that new quality development will be located so loss of green-field land is minimised. Horsford Parish Council believe this can only be achieved by not allocating additional sites to Horsford or other “village clusters”. Also by clustering villages, will settlement boundaries be redefined around the perimeter of these clusters, which will mean that more green-field sites are vulnerable to further allocation. If this is the case, then Horsford Parish Council are against adopting this approach to the proposed distribution of housing within the hierarchy, as its green-field areas are then susceptible to development.