Like it or not, thousands more houses will probably get built in Torridge and North Devon over the next few years.
This is not a choice being made by our current district councils, who have to deal with any planning applications. It’s down to targets set by national government.
Quite rightly, this has got large numbers of people highly alarmed, especially as ministers are also proposing to scrap district councils in a shake-up of local government, meaning decisions affecting our area could be made by a new unitary authority miles away in Exeter.
There are three particular concerns. One is the rate at which green fields are being gobbled up by new homes. Two is a fear that most of these houses won’t be affordable for locals. Three is that our existing infrastructure – roads, health services, schools, sewers etc – can’t cope as it is.
Councils cannot turn down planning applications based on these concerns. When an application comes before a council, the presumption is it will be approved unless there are grounds to refuse it. Legally, those grounds do not include potholes in the local roads, overloaded sewers or a lack of dentists.
And if councils turn down planning applications for the wrong reasons, developers can take them to court. If councils lose, they (i.e. the council tax payers) have to fork out for all the legal costs.
Even before last year’s General Election, Torridge and North Devon were obliged to allocate land for hundreds of new houses. If they hadn’t, it would have been even easier for developers to build wherever they wanted.
Now, the Labour government has increased those housing targets. Figures from the BBC show that over the next few years, Torridge is going to have to allocate space for 526 new houses per year (up from 306). North Devon’s target is 806 (up from 522).
It’s a crazy system. I agree we probably need new houses. But they should meet local needs and be affordable for local people. Building houses for the sake of meeting arbitrary targets might keep big developers happy but it won’t solve any of our problems. We need to tackle infrastructure first. We need to stop ripping up our countryside. We need homes that are affordable on the average (low) wages being paid in northern Devon.
And, crucially, we need to build homes that are future-proofed against climate change and that people can afford to run.