Somerset housing target could be cut by around 15,000 homes

Somerset Council is currently assessing the feedback from the first round of public consultation on its new Local Plan, which will come into force in the spring of 2029.

The new Local Plan was originally expected to deliver nearly 75,000 houses by 2045 - a rate of more than 3,600 per year - in light of the government's steep increase in local authority housing targets.

But officers have now indicated that they may reduce the scope of the plan from 20 years to 16, reducing the need to allocate such a large number of new sites.

Taunton resident David Orr raised the question when the council's planning and transport policy executive sub-committee met in Taunton on October 28.

David and Brenda Orr at the planning and transport policy executive sub-committee meeting (Image: Somerset Council)

Mr Orr argued that previous efforts to central government to drive housing growth through higher targets had fallen short of delivering what was needed.

He said: "In 2001, Taunton was designated a 'principal urban area'. By 2005, a regional target of 20,000 additional homes for Taunton by 2026 was set.

By March 2022, government figures showed 11,868 net additional homes across the wider Taunton Deane area. Taunton’s own total was lower still.

"This is a warning that setting a top-down housing target does not guarantee that homes will be delivered in the real-world.

"This recent history exposes the gulf between top-down housing targets and actual delivery.

"Builders do not build houses to government diktat by spreadsheet. They respond to demand, sales rates, infrastructure costs and profitability.

"Allocating land for forecast housing does not guarantee that homes will be built when or where government expects."

Under the revised housing targets produced by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Somerset is expected to deliver 74,920 homes over the 20-year period between 2025 and 2045 - and average of 3,746 homes per year, or just over ten a day.

Mr Orr said that building on such a scale was "substantially beyond what the real world will support" and would cause "permanent damage across rural Somerset".

He continued: "I ask this committee to consider a lower 16-year Local Plan period, from 2025 to 2041.

Local residents protesting the planned 'garden village' near Taunton (Image: Save the Blackdown Vale)

"At the same annual rate, this would mean 59,936 homes, a reduction of 14,984.

"With the Local Plan adoption currently expected in 2029, it would still extend around 12 years beyond adoption, exceeding the current national policy minimum of ten years."

Mr Orr has been a vocal opponent of the proposed 'garden village' near Taunton, with Taylor Wimpey recently unveiling plans to deliver a new community of 7,000 homes between Taunton Racecourse and the Blackdown Hills.

He argued that a shorter Local Plan period would make it less likely that this development would come forward at such a rapid rate, allowing its impact on local infrastructure to be properly mitigated.

He said: "My concern is that a very large allocation over 20 years will favour whichever sites offer developers the highest commercial returns. They will come forward straight away.

Masterplan of new town of 7,000 homes near Taunton Racecourse (Image: Taylor Wimpey)

"Taylor Wimpey’s 1,144-acre Orchard Portman site (across the M5 near Taunton) would be an early planning application, due to the huge windfall profit potential.

"A development of this scale east of the M5 would profoundly affect Taunton as the county town, with the motorway separating the 'new town' settlement from the existing town.

"A shorter Local Plan period would reduce the pressure on the site selection process to find land for the full 20-year requirement - and would, critically, allow housing delivery and demand to be reassessed through subsequent Local Plans, before committing to further expansion of this scale."

Kate Murdoch, the council’s service manager for planning policy and implementation, confirmed that a decision on potentially changing the scope of the Local Plan would be taken by councillors before Christmas.

She said: "We will be bringing a decision paper to this committee on December 9, sitting out the advantages and disadvantages of shortening the Local Plan period."

Kate Murdoch, the council’s service manager for planning policy and implementation (Image: Somerset Council)

The council will publish a summary of the first round of public consultation by the end of November, shortly after the final 'call for sites' has concluded.

More than 800 residents responded to the consultation, of which 96 per cent white, 71 per cent were aged 55 or over, and 19 per cent identified as disabled.

The next round of public consultation - which will ask for feedback on specific sites which have been allocated for housing - is currently scheduled to take place between September 10 and October 29, 2027 (several months after the next local elections in Somerset).

A final round of consultation will subsequently take place between March 10 and April 28, 2028 - shortly before the election of the first Wessex mayor - before the finished draft Local Plan is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate on September 8, 2028.

If all goes well, the new Local Plan will officially come into force by March 16, 2029.