Local Place Making - Quality of Existing Housing and Residential Areas

So that the Borough remains an attractive place to live, we will draw up policies and undertaking masterplanning to ensure that new development creates good new places, or enhances existing places. Good local places may include a mix of well designed energy efficient housing with strong local community and recreational facilities, shops and services. These walkable neighbourhoods are likely to be designed to encourage healthy lifestyles, enhance the natural environment, cherish local heritage, and have good access to jobs. 

Quality of Existing Housing and Residential Areas

The quality of some Council owned and older terraced residential environments needs improving to be attractive now and in the future. Concentrations of empty homes, houses in multiple occupation and sub-divided homes, e.g. in the Corporation Road area, can contribute to poor quality living environments (see the Council's Housing Strategy for more information). Recent changes to the Council tax regime and the bedroom tax are is affecting the prevalence of these types of dwellings, and new national policy and legislation arising from the Housing and Planning Act 2016 is also expected to have an effect.

It is proposed to review the evidence on these matters to see what the effects of the matters outlined above is likely to be. If problems remain that can be tacked through the planning system, a new policy will be prepared, using the existing adopted Core Strategy policy CS12 (weblink) as a starting point.

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