The West Midlands Spatial Development Strategy
Government has made a commitment to deliver 1.5 million new homes during this parliament and has already published a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which liberalises previous planning policy and reinstates mandatory housing targets. It acknowledges, however, that housing need in England cannot be met without planning for growth on a larger than local scale, and that reform is needed to introduce effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. The principal initiative to achieve this objective is the introduction of Spatial Development Strategies (SDS).
The West Midlands SDS will be a vital complement to the West Midlands Growth Plan. First and foremost it will be a land-use planning strategy, which indicates broad growth locations across the region such as those listed in the section above. Whilst it will inevitably include existing growth locations such as those identified in the section above, it cannot simply reflect them, it needs to add value, and articulate a future strategy indicating where when and how growth will be accommodated.
The SDS will need to demonstrate how the region will meet the collective housing need in the region, including redistribution where need generated in a local authority cannot be met within that authority’s boundaries. It will need to include details of the infrastructure necessary to support development, including the WM Local Transport Plan which is in itself a statutory document. It must also show how plans are mitigating or adapting to climate change and taking account of the local nature recovery strategy.
West Midlands Local Transport Plan
Our vision for transport in the West Midlands is to improve accessibility and ensure as many people as possible have access without a car to key services and their local neighbourhoods within a 15 minute round trip and a wider range of places across our region to undertake work, education, leisure and socialising within a 45 minute trip. Our Local Transport Plan explains how we are working to deliver our vision, underpinned by five clear motives for change and supported by six big moves, and a series of strategies and plans for how we will implement it.
West Midlands Local Nature Recovery Strategy
Our Local Nature Recovery Strategy outlines the priorities for how we will recover nature in the West Midlands. It maps out the region’s most valuable existing areas for nature and sets out specific proposals for nature recovery and achieving wider environmental goals. It also includes improvements to people's access to nature. The WMCA was appointed by government as the Responsible Body to develop the strategy convening and collaborating with stakeholders to play their part in delivering it.
Government implies that SDSs and Local Plans need to be developed in parallel and that the latter should not be delayed until the former is in place. This interface needs careful management as local plan preparation is at different stages across the area, with the Sandwell, Dudley, Coventry, and Wolverhampton plans at a more advanced stage than the other three, and prepared under older planning requirements.
Current estimates suggest that the WMCA constituent area can only deliver around two thirds of its collective housing need over a typical Local Plan period based on existing 31 forecast supply. There is potentially a shortfall of some 52,000 homes in the coming planning period. A recently commissioned Strategic Growth Study and current Local Plan preparation will confirm whether the WMCA area can meet its own needs using the approach consistent with the new NPPF and will specify the scale of any shortfall and whether it is appropriate to seek assistance from surrounding local authorities.
To support regional growth, our first priority must be to bring brownfield sites into use and to increase the density of our housing supply. The SDS must provide for a positive framework to bring forward the delivery of such sites, coupled with long-term funding to address these challenges. This will also depend on the alignment of housing and commercial growth opportunities supported by transport and energy infrastructure. The relationship between the WM Growth Plan and WM SDS is critical in this regard.
Having exhausted growth opportunities within the WMCA area, government has made provision for fresh consideration of development in the Green Belt. Green Belt reviews are currently under consideration in most Local Planning Authorities, alongside new government guidance on Grey Belt. The interplay of new environmental delivery plans, an emerging habitat bank system, and promoting wider health benefits of existing and new settlements may necessitate a review of the broader functions of the West Midlands Green Belt.
It is also very likely that the SDS will require new arrangements with neighbouring local authorities in order to meet housing need. If it is established that the constituent WMCA area cannot meet its collective need, a successor mechanism to the Duty to Cooperate will be needed. This could take the form of a more explicit shortfall mechanism and allowing a reciprocal referral mechanism from one SDS area to another; equally, the new legislation will make provision for two or more principal authorities to form a strategic planning board to jointly prepare an SDS over wider geography.
Work on the WM SDS is clearly in its early stages and it will require formal consultation in its own right in the months ahead, but this Green Paper presents an opportunity to address a number of key questions.
Outcomes:
Over the coming ten years we will prioritise our collective efforts to:
- Unlock economic growth through public and private investment in a series of major growth sites and corridors of opportunity;
- Better connect the region’s boroughs to its cities and its cities to each other by public transport;
- Make the core centres of the region’s cities and boroughs well-designed places to live, with denser housing connected to transport hubs as we advance the development of 15-minute neighbourhoods;
- Meet the rising demand for (social) housing from our burgeoning population;
- Transform the urban centres and high streets of the region’s cities and boroughs, creating the conditions for culture, leisure, retail and community activity to thrive.
Questions
14) How can Place-Based Strategies drive local economic growth, including the transformation of our town centres and high streets?
15) Do you agree with our identification of those growth sites of regional significance and the ‘corridors of opportunity’?
16) Do you agree that our first priority in meeting the WMCA’s housing need should be to bring brownfield sites into use and to increase the density and diversity of our housing supply?
17) What might be the opportunities and challenges of development in the Green Belt or Grey Belt?
18) How could arrangements with neighbouring local authorities be strengthened in order to meet housing shortfalls within the WMCA metropolitan area?