Strategy, planning and delivery case study

Sheffield City Council share best practice on how to improve joint working and information sharing between the council's planning and strategic housing services.

Summary

An important step in improving our approach has been to improve joint working and information sharing between the council's planning and strategic housing services. Significant efforts have also been made to improve liaison between the council and other partners, particularly neighbouring local authorities and the private sector.

Key steps have included:

  • ensuring services consult each other on draft policies and strategies
  • developing a shared evidence base in support of planning policies and housing strategies and seeking ‘buy-in' from public/ private sector partners
  • officer representation from both services and from key partners on delivery boards and steering/ working groups
  • developing consistent policy approaches and analysis across housing market areas
  • learning for other authorities.

Suggestions on good practice:

  • share draft policies and strategies with other council services
  • develop a mutual understanding of current and future planning and housing priorities
  • work together to establish and understand core housing market intelligence
  • keep the evidence base for policies and strategies up to date - information on sites, in particular, can change quickly!
  • involve house builders and developers, mortgage brokers and lenders and estate agents to get a market perspective
  • make the most of knowledge elsewhere within the council - particularly in terms of constraints to development and mechanisms for delivery
  • aim to develop a consistent approach with adjoining housing market areas but take a pragmatic approach to market area boundaries/ data availability
  • invest time in developing a comprehensive shared database and make use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

Making it happen

The council's planning and strategic housing services have worked closely in developing the council's planning polices and family of housing strategies. This has included work on the council's:

  • Local Development Framework (LDF)
  • housing strategy and affordable housing supplementary guidance
  • evidence base to support these documents: Sheffield Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) and the Sheffield & Rotherham Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA).

Our successful partnership with our neighbouring South Yorkshire local authorities has enabled us to better understand wider housing markets and their interdependencies, and we have made good progress in planning and attracting resources to deliver our vision for Sheffield

The council submitted its LDF core strategy to the Government in September 2007. Although this was supported by background reports setting out housing land supply, only limited evaluation of site deliverability (as required by national planning policy) had not been undertaken at that time. Work on the joint Sheffield and Rotherham SHLAA had started, but had progressed more slowly than anticipated and had not been completed by the time the core strategy public hearings were due to start in April 2008. This led to deferral of some of the hearings until September 2008 to allow time to complete the work. A key message here is to complete your SHLAA and SHMA before submitting your core strategy!

Joint working on the SHLAA and SHMA has been vital in providing a robust evidence base for the LDF core strategy. The SHLAA Working Group included representatives from adjoining local authorities, the Home Builders Federation, the Regional Development Agency, Environment Agency and the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder body.

Officers from both strategic housing and planning policy were involved in the SHMA Steering Group. The assessment was undertaken by private consultants in accordance with Government guidance. Workshops with public and private sector partners were held as part of undertaking the assessment and they were also briefed on the findings. The consultants also attended the LDF core strategy hearings to provide expert evidence on the HMA methodology. This proved useful in demonstrating compliance with national practice guidance and in countering objectors.

Strategic Housing Service were not represented on the SHLAA working group for the first SHLAA and this led to some inconsistencies in each service's assessments of site phasing and deliverability. This is being rectified in the 2009 SHLAA Update with the aim of improving information on council-owned land.

Although Sheffield and Rotherham councils have developed a common methodology on the SHLAA, differences in staff resources and LDF timetables have caused some difficulties in meeting some deadlines. Sheffield published an interim report in order to meet deadlines set by the LDF core strategy Inspector, with results for the whole market area to be produced at a later date.

Making a difference

Sheffield's Unitary Development Plan was adopted in 1998 and so did not reflect latest national planning policy on housing delivery. Most of the land allocated for new housing in the UDP has been developed and the city has increasingly relied on ‘windfalls' (unallocated land) to meet its housing requirement. Reuse of brownfield sites, renewal of housing areas and the expansion in the market for apartments has, however, enabled Sheffield to meet the requirement set in the UDP and, latterly, by the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). Delivery is currently running about 30 per cent above the RSS requirement.

Sheffield is one of the first metropolitan districts to have their statutory LDF core strategy adopted (prepared in accordance with the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004). The LDF core strategy inspector concluded that the SHLAA and SHMA represented robust evidence and found the core strategy to be sound. The SHLAA (and subsequent annual updates) will provide a key part of the evidence underpinning the LDF Site Allocations Development Plan document and in demonstrating a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites.

Before the SHMA and SHLAA were undertaken the council had a patchy understanding of the housing market, land supply and timescales for delivery of housing sites. The Sheffield Housing Need Study (2004) had provided an assessment of the need for affordable housing but wider market issues were less fully addressed. The SHMA provides a much wider assessment of housing demand both in terms of housing types, tenures and sub-areas.

Next steps

We're currently updating the SHMA. We will be talking directly to residents about their housing requirements, and any problems or issues they're facing in the current housing market. We'll also be talking to other stakeholders, and analysing a range of information to see how the housing market has changed since the previous SHMA.

Work is also progressing on the first update of the SHLAA. Looking further ahead, we intend to develop an integrated Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA). This will enable more effective consideration of development options and minimise the risk of double-counting sites for different uses.

Work has begun on the production of a design guide for residential development in Sheffield. This will help to explain to developers the local character of Sheffield's neighbourhoods and how this might be translated into the physical development. This has a key role in raising design quality. It is proposed that the guide will be integrated into the LDF as a supplementary planning document.

Further information