Labour set to oppose building more homes in York
Labour’s Local Plan proposals 2013
York councillors are to be presented with an update on progress with technical work on the Local Plan when they meet next week.
A report will be considered by the Local Plan Working Group on Monday 10 July before it is taken to the Executive on Thursday 13 July.
Councillors will be asked to approve the production of a comprehensive draft plan over the summer, ready for public consultation in September.
This will lead towards the publication of a final plan early next year.
Since the last major update, work has been ongoing to assess the impact of the release of three Ministry of Defence (MOD) sites in York which are to be sold off.
Councillors will be advised the MOD land at Imphal and Queen Elizabeth Barracks could be suitable for future housing development, potentially providing 769 and 623 dwellings respectively. Labour have already said that they oppose providing additional homes on these sites preferring to build on Green Belt land (see left)
The third MOD site, Towthorpe Lines, is not deemed suitable for housing but could be considered for employment use instead.
The Local Plan Working Group and Executive will consider issues associated with how land might be provided in the future for both new housing and employment development as well as setting a long-term green belt boundary for York.
Housing numbers. click to enlarge
The council has already consulted on the local plan ‘preferred sites’. This happened for a ten-week period in 2016. Over 2,250 responses were received from individuals, housing developers and stakeholders.
The next step is to produce a full draft plan. Councillors will be asked to approve this.
It is expected that further consultation take place in September. Pre-publicity would start in August when details of the proposals would be sent to residents in a special, York-wide, edition of the ‘Our City’ council newspaper.
The results of the consultation will be shared with the working group and Executive in January before a final version of the Local Plan is prepared. It is anticipated this would be subject to final formal consultation in February 2018 and could be submitted to government in spring 2018.