The great housing land debate (From Basingstoke Gazette)

The great housing land debate

4:00pm Saturday 24th July 2010 in News

A LIST of potential sites for thousands of new houses is to be debated by councillors on Monday and Thursday of next week.

The 32 sites are those which borough councillors do not want included in the all-important Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) document.

Decisions on the list and the SHLAA will affect where thousands of houses are built in the next 20 years.

Members of the planning and infrastructure committee at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council will be deciding on the former Eli Lilly site and the adjoining Victoria site in Houndmills, Basingstoke, which together are already the subject of controversial planning applications by developer Lemon Land. It is seeking to build hundreds of houses and a new business area.

Also on the agenda will be the areas east of Basingstoke that have provoked widespread opposition after being earmarked for 3,500 houses.

On Monday, the sites to be decided will include:

* Lodge Farm: 1,500 homes

* Poors Farm: 900 homes

* Land east of Chineham: 900 homes

* Down Grange playing field: 100 homes

* Land east of Ringway: 40 homes

* Land north of Churchill Way: 45 homes

* Overton Hill, Overton: 200 homes

* Two Gate Lane, Overton: 200 homes

* Pond Close, Overton: 200 homes

* Land north of Court Farm, Overton: 80 homes

* Laverstoke Mill: 52 homes

* Manor Farm, Whitchurch: 50 homes

* The Gables, Whitchurch: 50 homes

* Land east of Knowlings, Whitchurch: 200 homes

On Thursday, the agenda will include the Eli Lilly and Victoria sites, plus 250 homes earmarked for South View, the 200 homes for the Gresley Road Triangle, 45 homes on the playing field at The Vyne School in South View, 500 homes at Cufaude Farm near Bramley, 250 homes at Redlands near Bramley and another 200 homes in Bramley at Minchens Lane.

Councillors will have to judge the individual sites against a set of criteria as to whether they are suitable, achievable, available, “developable” and deliverable.

Those that they decide should not be in the SHLAA will then be considered by the council’s corporate director Karen Brimacombe in consultation with Christopher Guy, the council’s head of legal services. A new version of the SHLAA will then be published at the end of August.