Top councillors on Bath & North East Somerset Council are having to “carefully consider” how they can find space to build twice as many homes in the area as they thought they had to.
The council had been drawing up plans for where to put the 717 homes a year that it had been told it needed to build over the next 20 years by the Conservative government.
Options considered for the council’s next local plan — the document that sets out its planning policies and where developments should go — included seeing villages such as Farrington Gurney double in size and building a whole new village near the Two Headed Man.
Thousands of people responded to the consultation on the options — despite technical issues — but now the new Labour government has more than doubled the target to 1,466 homes a year.
The council’s cabinet will now discuss resetting the local plan and reviewing the green belt at its next meeting on Thursday 12th September.
The council’s cabinet member for built environment, housing, and sustainable development Matt McCabe (Bathavon South, Liberal Democrat) said: “Here in B&NES, we are committed to delivering the right homes in the right places, and homes that are genuinely affordable.
“We also have an aspiration to be building hundreds of council homes every year. So, I welcome any changes that help us deliver on our priorities.
“However, the current NPPF [national planning policy framework] consultation proposes a more than doubling of our current housing targets, when compared to the figures included in our new, emerging local plan.
“We had been intending to put a draft plan out for consultation at the beginning of 2025, with draft plan submission to the Planning Inspectorate next June.
“We need now to carefully consider the impact of the draft NPPF on this programme.”
He added: “We will therefore be seeking more clarity from central government on their methodology for arriving at their new figure, as well as on their levels of commitment to providing more support for affordable housing delivery.
“Crucially, our residents would expect any additional housing to be supported by much-needed infrastructure – including sustainable transport, health, education and community facilities- and we will be making these points clearly in our response to the consultation.”
The council cabinet will vote on whether to “reset” the local plan when they meet on Thursday and agree to prepare it for the government’s new deadline of December 2026.
Responses to the options consultation will still be used to inform the reset of the local plan. The local plan is a major statutory document which will form the basis for planning permission decisions across Bath and North East Somerset until 2042.
Housing targets have changed across the country, with many rural councils ordered to find space for more houses. Somerset Council had been told it needed to build 2,669 homes a year but has now been ordered to build 3,891.
Meanwhile, North Somerset had been told the area needed 20,000 new homes in total across the next 15 years, but councillors battled to get the number down to 14,985 under the last government.
Now the Labour government is changing that figure again and space will have to be found in North Somerset for 23,805 new homes over that period — almost 1,600 a year.
For urban areas, some targets have instead gone down. Bristol has been told it can now build 10% less houses, from 3,378 to 3,057 a year.
Bath & North East Somerset Council’s cabinet will meet at 6.30pm on 12th September in the council chamber in the Guildhall in Bath.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
