Appendix for North West Bassett

Bassett Neighbourhood Development Plan

Appendix for North West Bassett

1Introduction

This plan represents the work of the North West Bassett residents and the Residents Association (NWBRA) and has been prepared following extensive consultation and evidence gathering since 2009.

The NWBRA Committee recognised that it was better to have a neighbourhood plan, despite possible flaws, than to rely on wide ranging and somewhat generalised City-wide planning policies. This Plan hopes to influence planning decision making and help shape NWB for the future. In preparing this plan reference is made to National and Local Guidance and Policies where appropriate.

There have been major changes to planning in the City during the formulation of this Plan, with the introduction of Localism, the Government's intention to remove Regional Strategies and revised planning guidance published in the National Planning Policy Framework. The Localism Act introduced the concept of Neighbourhood Plans, primarily a community led planning policy document which allocates land for development and may include a series of locally derived policies to control the location and appearance of new development. The City Council has taken on board these elements and the parts that are of particular importance to NWB, a community led planning approach, are reflected in this plan.

2The Residents Plan

Neighbourhood Planning Regulations came into force in April 2012, which set out the procedure to be followed and clarified the role and responsibilities of the local planning authority in supporting the preparation and production of these plans.

The proposals that are outlined in this document have been developed from consultations with the residents. Thus this is a residents plan, not ‘simply’ a neighbourhood plan. From this starting point the NWBRA Committee has put together this document and submitted it to be part of the Ward-wide plan. The NWBRA Committee believes that this is a valid proposal and trusts that it will play a key role in the future development of the Bassett Ward.

3The North West Bassett Area

Bassett is the most northern ward in Southampton, bounded by Swaythling to the east and Coxford to the west and has a population of over 14,000. It is a northern gateway and main route into Southampton via the M3 and A33 and is an area of contrasts.

North West Bassett, as the name suggests, is an area on the northern and western edge of Bassett with the residential areas bounded by on the eastern side by the A33 Bassett Avenue and on the western side in part by Holly Brook which largely forms the NW boundary between the City and Test Valley Borough Council’s area but also includes parts of the Sports Centre and Golf Course. Bassett Row marks the southern boundary and Lingwood Close, Fitzroy Close and parts of Pine Way, Roman Road, Chilworth Road and Romsey Road form the northern boundary with the M27 motorway cutting through the northern tip.

The area is almost exclusively residential in nature with established roads and over 400 units of housing accommodation, the majority of which appear to have been constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, but with examples from both before and after this period. Some of the primary roads are grass verged and tree-lined and there is very little commercial activity. The housing form is largely that of detached and semi-detached dwellings set in comparatively large plots. The predominant tenure is owner occupation. At the southern end of NWB, just off Bassett Avenue, there is a new higher density development at Newitt Place and towards the northern boundary of NWB with the M27 some later, terraced, semi-detached and flat development is found. A few newer replacement and infill developments can be discovered in places across the whole of the area.

4Objectives, Vision and Policy Background

The initial objective of the NWBRA was to produce a paper that described North West Bassett as it currently exists and to create an agreed vision for it in relation to the future of this residential area, so that it might be taken forward into a Bassett-wide Neighbourhood Development Plan. If it was to have any value, this NWB ‘as is’ plan and future vision needed to be sufficiently robust to meet Government and local authority criteria but, and most importantly, meet our requirements as residents, who will ultimately determine, through a referendum, its appropriateness.

There is a hierarchy of plans into which the Bassett Neighbourhood Development Plan will fit. The overarching layer, the City Council’s Sustainable Community Strategy, has the following vision statement:

As the major city in central southern England, Southampton will be recognised as the region’s economic, social and cultural driver, building on its role as an international seaport, centre for cutting

edge research and leading retail centre.

In preparing this plan for NWB, albeit as only part of a whole ward plan, the approach has been to meet the requirements of the residents of NWB and reconcile these needs with the policy determinants principally set out in the Southampton City Council’s Local Development Framework (LDF). It is believed that the NWB response meets the needs of the local community and contributes to the delivery of the Southampton Sustainable Community Strategy’s vision for a prosperous, attractive, sustainable city through getting the right development in the right place at the right time.

In its Community Strategy, the City Council aims to balance the role of the City as one of the drivers of economic growth for the region against the need to improve the overall quality of life of residents and those who work in or visit the City. The NWBRA understands the City Council’s ambitions, particularly as it seeks to influence regional economic activity and, whilst not wanting to undermine this strategic purpose, this Plan has, by necessity, focussed on maintaining and wherever possible improving the present quality of life for present and future residents of NWB.

The NWB elements of the whole ward Neighbourhood Plan aim to meet the requirements of the other key policies that inform the LDF whilst retaining the features that are important to the NWBRA and the residents more widely.

One of the key issues for the NWBRA in coming up with its objectives and vision has been in relation to reconciling planning policy with community needs and expressed wishes and, in particular, how it relates to a concept we have called ‘positive conservation’. By this we mean that to keep NWB exactly as it is currently would not be possible (it has always changed) – this plan talks about planning and agreeing such change. Appropriate-scale changes to meet wider needs that still conserves the essence of what we believe NWB to be, will be positively considered. NWBRA recognises that the plan has to support ‘excellent’ development and not be anti ‘any’ development per se, as this is the only way it can be carried forward.

But significantly, this plan does not support inappropriate or excessive development proposals and/or poor design. The NWBRA understands the City Council’s need to meet the Government’s various strategic planning policies including the housing requirement of 16,300 new homes to be built across the City by 2026. However, the NWBRA feels it has a duty and an overriding priority to try and maintain the essence of what has become NWB and any future development will be expected to meet these requirements.

This objective therefore is, in effect, the overarching vision for NWBRA and informs the approach and input into the wider Ward plan.

Objective 1 - Vision

North West Bassett is a mature residential area that wishes to evolve through meeting community and wider needs by means of positive conservation; any change or growth resulting in development has to demonstrate that it is needed, appropriate and of high quality design, which keeps the essences of the present whilst embracing excellent but modest development in keeping with the character of the area.

The NWBRA Committee believes that this vision will be achieved through consideration of the following key issues:

• Housing, including design and development density; Sustainable development respecting the context of NWB to reflect local character, density and appearance;
• Transport and traffic (including parking, pollution and HGV traffic);
• Population make-up and the impact of future change;
• Landscape and streetscape including the importance of trees;
• Public open space, amenity and community/commercial facilities;

5Housing

Population movements suggest that people need or want to live in Southampton. As a result there is increasing demand to build new homes and extend or refurbish existing homes. Residential development in Southampton has been growing at a rate of over 1,000 dwellings per annum since 2002. The Urban Capacity Study 2005 concluded that the City had the capacity to accommodate a further 6,453 dwellings to 2011, with the possibility of a further 15,000-20,000 dwellings to 2026. That was the basis for the Southampton proposals for the South East Plan.

It was recognised by the local authorities in the South East, particularly in the sub-regional urban South Hampshire proposals created by PUSH, that to achieve this considerable level of growth in housing numbers would require at the same time a significant growth in the economy. That has not yet happened. The generally agreed approach to increased housing is a sustainable one based upon providing housing in areas well served by public transport and making more efficient use of previously developed land. In preparing this Plan, it was difficult to perceive how higher density housing and particularly affordable housing could be provided without having a major detrimental effect on the local character of NWB and environment more widely. As a consequence it was not considered possible for NWB to make any significant contribution to this wider Council policy.

As indicated above, NWB is a mature, suburban area with little scope for and little demand from residents for significant change. The City Council, in its Core Strategy has identified potential development needs for its suburban areas and has suggested that for the three Wards to the North of the City, 650 homes will be provided. A number of sites in the three North Wards of Portswood, Swaythling and Bassett have already been identified and although none of the development proposals identify NWB explicitly, it seems reasonable to suggest that some element of the growth will either directly or indirectly impinge on the area.

The tenure and make-up of housing in NWB is significantly different to the overall housing in the rest of the City. In the City as a whole, flats and maisonettes make up 35%, terraced housing 23% and semi-detached and detached houses and bungalows 42% of the stock.

In NWB flats and maisonettes make up 20%, terraced housing 20%, but the significant difference is that detached and semi-detached housing constitute 60% of the area’s stock. The Vision, outlined above, seeks to maintain this mix.

In accepting the implication of the Core Strategy proposals for the Northern suburban areas, this plan expects to inform any development impacting on the NWB area. Given that there are no obvious or available green or brownfield (previously developed) sites any future development is expected to take the form of the replacement of single private dwellings on large plots with replacement houses of an appropriate density in keeping with that found throughout NWB.

Urban gardens used to come within the definition of ’brownfield’ land but that definition was considered to encourage the demolition of houses with large gardens. The Coalition Government has removed private gardens from the definition of brownfield land and, removed the requirement upon local authorities to have regard to national minimum density for housing. Regional housing targets are also being abolished. Taken together, NWBRA believes that this removes much of the pressure on local planning authorities to grant planning consent for inappropriate housing developments on private gardens and supports the approach outlined in the next section.

National planning policy changes also allow councils to take a view and set their own standards on appropriate housing density, for new developments particularly. Where there are large areas of executive family housing, which tends to mean large detached homes, a lower density would be expected. There are many swathes of such housing in a number of NWB roads and this is particularly relevant in Saxholm Way, Saxholm Dale, Saxholm Close, Bassett Dale, Links View Way, Bassett Avenue, Pinewood, Pinehurst Road and, parts of Lingwood Close, Roman Road, Bassett Heath Avenue, Bassett Row, Chilworth Road and Pine Way. This Plan seeks the creation of a designation of Executive Family Homes for these areas of detached housing in the above mentioned roads to maintain the existing housing density. The existing standard largely set for these properties is four homes per acre which equates to just under 10 per hectare.

Housing Development

If any proposal for a family home to be re-developed comes forward, this Plan seeks that for it to remain in keeping with the area, it be replaced by a similar sized family home. However, if a larger plot (by this we mean a 1/4 acre or larger) is proposed to be adapted to increase the total number of dwellings on the site, then the Plan seeks that the maximum number of replacement family houses does not exceed three in replacement for the one original, but only where that is appropriate within the site and that the new homes should be no more than two stories and each have at least three bedrooms.

If the nature of this residential area and the density of approximately 10-15 homes per hectare is to be retained then to cope with such a re-development policy it is felt that only the larger single detached house plots are developed in this way. However, there may be exceptions where a slightly larger development might be possible and not significantly detract from the nature of NWB and retain its amenity values. In such exceptional circumstances no more than two adjacent house plots could be put together to compile a redevelopment site.

For the majority of the NWB area, detached homes predominate. Although there are a range of plot sizes, the average detached house plot is a little less than the larger executive home at around a fifth of an acre, which equates to a density of around 12-13 per hectare. The maximum possible level of house replacement, i.e. up to three for one, would only be practicable where there is a larger plot and the setting is appropriate. In the exceptional cases where two house plots could be combined, the Plan could allow up to five homes replacing the original two but again only where it is in keeping with the nature of the area and not to the detriment of amenity.

Any new housing must meet high standards of design, relevant to its surroundings and make particular arrangements for off-road parking.

Just as the City Council has developed a 1:10 policy for HMO ‘density’ then this plan proposes that a similar 1:10 policy should be adopted for sites where additional homes are to be built, i.e. no redevelopment site to provide additional homes should take place within 10 homes of a similar development.

This proposal is intended to recognise the need for additional housing and the evolution of the NWB area, but at the same time it must still be in keeping with the nature and scale of the area and maintain the essence of what has made NWB the place it is.

In all of these potential redevelopment examples, it is required that before any development takes place:

- Existing infrastructure and services must have adequate capacity to serve the new developments, or arrangements are made for appropriate increases in capacity.

- Climate change, renewable energy and green infrastructure opportunities and flooding issues are properly addressed

- Each of the new dwellings is a single house, not a building sub-divided into flats.

- As the main house type in the area is of two storey construction, this plan suggests that this house design should be maintained and proposals to develop three storey homes or create three storeys by converting roof spaces should be avoided.

Objective 2 - Housing Development

The Bassett Neighbourhood Development Plan will only support the appropriate and sustainable development of replacement new housing in NWB at a density as described in the Housing Development section of this Plan.

In addition:

- Full regard should be had to environmental assets, scarce resources, constraints and opportunities;

- Buildings and spaces should promote the character of the streetscape and setting of existing dwellings and enhance individual and community health and wellbeing.