Housebuilding in New Forest stalls as soaring construction costs and Ukraine war take toll, NFDC councillors told

HOUSEBUILDING in the New Forest has stalled because of soaring construction costs and the challenges of building in environmentally sensitive areas, NFDC’s cabinet has heard.

New Forest District Council, which is required to meet annual targets for housing, has fallen short of the required numbers over the past two years, leading to the launch of a Housing Delivery Action Plan.

The NFDC Local Plan target for 2021/22 was 400 houses, but just 79 had been completed, a report to the cabinet revealed. The following year only 193 were finished from a target of 400. The current NFDC Local Plan – which is undergoing a review – set a housing target of at least 10,420 new dwellings between 2016 and 2036.

To meet this, the authority aims to deliver 400 homes every year until 2026, and then 700 homes a year until 2036. It is currently 323 homes short of hitting its target.

However, according to a report from NFDC housing and planning officer Peter McGowan, a number of factors such as Covid, the Ukraine war, high inflation and rising building costs had slowed the pace of both planning applications and building progress.

Cllr Derek Tipp, cabinet member for planning and economy, said: “It’s a very complex and widespread problem, not just in this district but all over the country there are housing delays.

“Many factors are beyond the control of individual councils, and we are being very proactive and bringing forward a review of the Local Plan which will help to address a lot of these issues; we are also putting this comprehensive plan in place.”

Steve Davies, cabinet member for housing and homelessness, said NFDC would be close to delivering 500 new affordable homes by 2026, against a target of 600 set in 2018. “I am told in addition to the 474 finishes, there are future opportunities in the pipeline [for affordable homes].”

Peter McGowan revealed that NFDC faces significant environmental challenges as well as environmental factors that have impacted housebuilding. He said the authority will work with stakeholders and review its plan annually, adding: “The action plan sets out a range of measures we will seek to promote in the coming years to encourage housing delivery.”

Cllr Malcolm Wade warned that if NFDC cannot meet targets, unsuitable housing schemes could be granted planning permission on appeal. He continued: “This gives developers a defence if we want to object to an application for very genuine reasons.”

Cllr David Hawkins said that although houses were needed, the area was made up of many villages. He continued: “We need to be mindful of how many houses we put in these village sites because the developers want to put in double the amount and cause total mayhem within a village – the local roads are not roads, they are lanes.

“We need to mindful of these problems – we can’t just go around and build houses because we need them.”

The meeting heard that restrictive building within the national park area also created a significant challenge for the district.

“Potential impacts that development will be required to mitigate include the effects on plants and species due to traffic emissions on roads through the New Forest, water quality impacts of increased discharge of phosphates and nitrates to the River Avon or the Solent or Southampton Water respectively,” stated the report.

It also emerged that the development of 18 strategic sites within the district had not progressed as quickly as anticipated, due to a range of site-specific issues and factors such as increased building costs.

Measures in the housing delivery action plan include working with site owners and developers to facilitate the delivery of housing; ensuring that development sites are “optimised” to full development capacity, while still being well designed and contextually appropriate; and contacting landowners to progress work on stalled sites.

Reports also revealed that there are more than a dozen sites across the New Forest which could be developed with hundreds of homes that have not yet been developed. These include land at Hanger Farm which has planning permission for 330 homes, land at Dudley Farm which was identified in the Local Plan for around 80 homes; and land at Eling Wharf which could accommodate around 400 homes.