Proposed Submission Draft Local Plan Sustainability Appraisal

Object

Representation ID: 13800

Received: 02/05/2025

Respondent: Clarendon Land

Agent: Marrons

Option B (HDC’s LHN plus 123 dpa to address Leicester’s unmet housing need) was selected as the preferred option. We disagree that only meeting the District’s own LHN is a “reasonable alternative,” as this would be tantamount to the HDC turning its back on Leicester’s unmet housing need, which would not be consistent with national policy or the legal Duty to Cooperate.
There is a clear and compelling case to test a higher housing requirement not only because of recent housing delivery trends mentioned above, but because of the wider issue of an HMA-wide shortfall over the plan period beyond 2036. A higher growth figure could provide sufficient headroom to respond to this longer-term strategic challenge and this has not been addressed given that alternative scales of growth were not tested beyond the initial spatial options.
Given these considerations, the overall quantity of growth has not been fully explored through the SA process