Basingstoke and Deane Local Plan Update 2021 to 2040 Draft for Regulation 18 Consultation January 2024
Object
Paragraph 35 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (2023) identifies the tests of soundness that Local Plan and Spatial Development Strategies are examined against as follows:
a) “Positively prepared – providing a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs; and is informed by agreements with other authorities, so that unmet need from neighbouring areas is accommodated where it is practical to do so and is consistent with achieving sustainable development;
b) Justified – an appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence;
c) Effective – deliverable over the plan period, and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground; and
d) Consistent with national policy – enabling the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in this Framework and other statements of national planning policy, where relevant.”
Draft Policy SPS5.14: 65 New Road is allocated for approximately six dwellings. The supporting text sets out that the development will provide “an opportunity to contribute to the repair of the slightly fragmented arrangement of buildings in the locality so that there is an improvement to the setting of the Basingstoke Town Conservation Area to the north and the wider streetscene.”
It is understood that the site is currently home to Basingstoke Makerspace, a not-for-profit community workshop. There is currently no planning application on the site which would indicate that the workspace is no longer in use, and the website currently indicates that it is still open. The draft Local Plan is not clear as to whether this employment use is to be retained and if it is proposed to be lost, how the loss of employment land is to be justified.
Accordingly, we do not consider that this site can be considered to be deliverable / developable and it should be deleted.