Wales planning news, December 2018

 

On 22 November, the Welsh Minister for Housing and Regeneration Rebecca Evans published a Written Statement setting out the new approach that will apply to estimating future housing need in Wales.

Specifically, and following the analysis of different assessment mechanisms currently in use across the UK, the Welsh Government has decided to adopt the housing need and demand tool developed by the Scottish Government. The tool will provide estimates of future housing need based on projections of newly forming households that will require additional housing units and existing unmet need; the overall estimates will then be broken down by tenure based on assumptions about future income, house and rent prices.

The intention is for the tool to be used to prepare estimates of housing need at both national and regional level. The first national and regional level estimates are expected to be published in the first quarter of 2019, while there are no ‘immediate plans to change the requirements surrounding Local Housing Market Assessment which are developed by local authorities to determine local housing requirements’.

On 7 January 2019, new secondary legislation requiring Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) in certain new developments will come into force.

The Sustainable Drainage (Approval and Adoption) (Wales) Order 2018 makes provision in relation to the requirements for approval, and requests for adoption, of SuDS. The Order also introduces ‘SuDS Approving Bodies’ (or SABs) which will be set up within every local authority and will be in charge of approving drainage plans.

Paragraph 8 (Application for approval) of Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 provides two possible approaches for applying for approval of SuDS. If the construction work does not require planning permission, then the application for approval must be a free-standing application made in accordance with the requirements of Paragraph 9 (Free-standing application for approval). If the construction work requires planning permission then, in addition to the free-standing application route, an alternative combined application route is available; under Paragraph 10 (Combined applications) the application for SuDS approval can be made in combination with an application for planning permission.

The requirement for SuDS approval will apply to all developments involving construction works for more than a single dwelling (or where the construction area is more than 100sqm).

Exemptions to the requirement for SuDS approval cover:

- construction works involving a construction area of less than 100sqm (where planning permission is not required), under Article 4 of the 2018 Order;

- construction works in respect of which planning permission was granted (or deemed to be granted) or a valid application was received by a local planning authority before the coming into force of the Order (i.e. 7 January 2019), under Article 5 of the 2018 Order; and

- developments involving the construction of a single dwelling house (or where the construction area is less than 100sqm), irrespective of ‘whether or not planning permission is required for the construction work’, under Article 6 of the 2018 Order.

The Welsh Environment Minister, Hannah Blythyn, said:

‘Until now, the uptake of SuDS has been low. These regulations will help reduce flood risk and improve water quality, while also introducing homes for wildlife within new housing developments’.