RESIDENTS in Basingstoke and Deane will be able to have their say on the council's plan to slow down the number of homes built in the borough, if it is decided that a consultation can go ahead. 

At a meeting of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, January 9 2024, councillors will decide if the draft local plan update is ready to move to the next stage, onto public consultation and giving residents the chance to have their say on it.

As previously reported, government calculations suggest as many as 17,820 new homes need to be built in the borough by the end of 2039.

Borough council documents reveal that the authority needs to build 7,703 houses more than it currently has in the pipeline.

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The plan includes a ‘stepped trajectory’ approach, put forward by the new administration, which will see the current government figure of building 850 homes a year, reduced to under 700 a year from 2025 for the first five years of the plan.

Cabinet member for strategic planning and infrastructure, Cllr Andy Konieczko, said: “Making decisions about where future development should go is never easy but accelerating the local plan process and moving it forward has been one of our cabinet’s top priorities.

"All the time we don’t have a plan that has been shaped by the local community, we run the risk of developers making decisions about the future of our borough rather than the people who live here.

“Having an ambitious and robust local plan in place is vital to the future of Basingstoke and Deane. We need to balance how we meet the growing demand for new homes and workplaces for current and future generations while protecting and enhancing our local environment. We have worked hard to develop this draft plan and policies with valuable input from our councillors, parish and town councils, and residents and community groups.

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“We’ve listened to the comments made at the economic, planning and housing committee meeting in September and have removed three sites from the Spatial Strategy. These are Lodge Farm, the land west of Upper Cufaude Farm and Skates Lane. We’ve also added in the former Portals site in Overton, following consultation with local stakeholders, as well as increased the number of new homes in the town centre.

“Now I feel we are ready to share this work with the people who it matters to most – the people who live here.

"Through the borough-wide consultation, we will be able to listen to their views to help us shape a plan that provides a clear vision for the direction in which we collectively want our borough to go.”

Borough councillors have inputted into the draft plan and policies and the cabinet member responsible for the local plan update, Cllr Konieczko, has met with around 20 parish and town councils to share the key aims of the plan and listen to the priorities for each area. 

If approved at cabinet, the next step would be to start a six-week borough-wide consultation later in January 2024, where residents will have an opportunity to have their say on the plan and any related issues.

The report for the meeting has now gone live via the council’s website at basingstoke.gov.uk/lpu-news, and sets out the policies in the plan and the proposed new larger development sites to go to consultation in the new year.