Part One: Spatial Strategy and Policies (Regulation 19)

Object

Representation ID: 1622

Received: 08/01/2025

Respondent: Heyfield Developments

Agent: Harris Lamb

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? No

We do not consider that the Development Strategy takes sufficient steps to meet the Housing Requirement as set and does not make any allowances to assist neighbouring authorities who we know cannot meet their own needs (Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Birmingham). Furthermore, we do not consider that it is properly informed / supported by the Duty to Cooperate, the onus on which has increased notably follow the demise of the Black Country Core Strategy.

Proposed Changes to National Policy

Before we set out the reasons for this, we also note that the Housing Requirement is based on the current Standard Method figure. This is likely to change at the end of the year and the current evidence would suggest Dudley’s Standard Method figure will increase significantly with it. Whether Dudley MBC can avoid this remains to be seen, but if the Council is not successful, the Development Strategy and Duty Cooperate will need to be revisited to meet the requirements of the amended NPPF and the new Standard Method figure

Object

Representation ID: 1623

Received: 08/01/2025

Respondent: Heyfield Developments

Agent: Harris Lamb

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? No

We do not consider that the Council has taken the appropriate measures to fulfil the Duty to Co-operate. We consider that discussions should be reopened with adjoining authorities, including South Staffordshire, to allow for the land required to meet Dudley’s development needs to be identified and committed. These discussions will need to be in the context of the unmet need across the conurbation and the neighbouring authorities should be encouraged to release more land to assist.

The Duty to Co-operate relates to the production of the Dudley Local Plan, where as the Duty to Co-operate Statement October 2024 seems to focus on the process taken through the Black Country Core Strategy review. Separate to the fact that the discussions prior to the demise of the Black Country Plan did not relate to the Dudley Local Plan, the position has materially changed since the demise of the Black Country Plan and over 2 years has passed. The discussions around the Black Country Plan did not resolve the unmet housing need and allot of further work was needed to deal with substantial demand for land to assist in meeting the unmet need arising.

The split of the four Black Country Authorities also notably increased the onus on the Duty to Co-operate. For Dudley MBC, it meant new discussions were needed with the neighbouring authorities previous spoken with and it required a new look at the interrelationship with the three other Black County Authorities, a matter previously enveloped by producing a joint plan. For Dudley, the break-up of the Black Country plan may have meant less pressure through its own plan to release land to meet its needs, but it did not remove the need arising from the adjoining Black Country authorities nor reduce the amount of land available within Dudley MBC to assist these authorities.

Since the start of the Dudley Local Plan, little in the way of co-operation with adjoining authorities appears to have happened. The challenges presented by the substantial unmet need were clear at the start of the preparation of the Dudley Local Plan and we would have expected co-operation with adjoining authorities to be at the heart of the plan making process to address these issues. However, this does not appear to have happened.
We now have a pre-submission plan where we do not know where the unmet need from Dudley will go nor to what extent Dudley MBC are going to assist the other Black Country Authorities with their unmet need.

Furthermore, rather than these matters being resolved, the Duty to Cooperate Statement sets out what measures are going to take, which seems back to front from our perspective, particularly given the scale of the issues here.
The reality is that the unmet need figures for housing and employment are significant in this location. For this to be met requires a group effort. More needs to be done to work with the authorities affected by this (both in terms of those authorities where the unmet need arises and those authorities with the ability to assist in meeting the unmet need).

Object

Representation ID: 1624

Received: 08/01/2025

Respondent: Heyfield Developments

Agent: Harris Lamb

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? No

Our concern with Policy DLP12, perhaps go beyond DLP12 and links back to DLP1. However, it is in DLP12 where the issue becomes apparent and so we have set out our comments here.

The issue is that the plan does not plan to meet the affordable housing need identified, but there is little, if any, acknowledgement of this.

The reason we have concluded the Dudley Local Plan will not meet the affordable housing need, is that for this to happen 23.5% of the housing requirement would need to be affordable. However, the plan does not allow for this for the reasons set out below:

• Sites below the threshold will not deliver affordable housing, which increases the percentage of sites above the threshold that need to be delivered as affordable homes for the 23.5% to be met.
• A range of affordable housing targets are set, but in practice most sites will be in the lower and medium value areas on brownfield sites. This means the majority of site will be brought forward with a starting requirement of 10% and 20% respectively.
• Even if we assume all sites came forward based on the policy requirements, the blended rate on sites above the threshold would be somewhere between 10 and 20%, and slightly closer to 20 to allow for a small number of sites meeting the higher affordable housing requirement.
• However, not all sites will come forward, because the policy recognises some sites will still not be able to meet these requirements and the amount of affordable housing they deliver will be discounted based on the viability of the scheme.
With the affordable housing need not being met, we would have expected more to have been done to explore a higher housing requirement to meet the affordable housing need and / or exploring the release of Green Belt, which can deliver a substantially higher proportion of affordable homes (50% being the requirement in the draft version of the amended NPPF).

We consider both options should be explored and the substantial benefit of delivering affordable housing weighed against the potential negative effects of delivering this additional numbers / different sites, which would be limited.