Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment

The Planning Policy team is preparing a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) for Woking Borough. The need to prepare a SHLAA is set out in `Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing' (PPS3). This requires local authorities to identify specific and deliverable sites in order to demonstrate how the requisite level of housing supply is to be achieved. The Council is currently working towards meeting an annual housing target of 292 dwellings per annum (as set out in the South East Plan Panel Report). Government guidance published in July 2007 sets out that these sites are to be identified through the preparation of a SHLAA.The main role of the SHLAA is to:       

  • identify and assess sites and their potential for housing
  • assess when sites are likely to be developed.

The SHLAA will form an important part of the evidence base for the documents which will comprise of the Council's Local Development Framework and in particular the Core Strategy, which will identify broad locations for development. The Site Allocations Development Plan Document will identify specific housing sites. The SHLAA will:

  • identify the recent pattern of housing development
  • identify the choice of sites available to meet Woking's housing requirement
  • form a basis for making decisions about where to locate housing development in the future
  • inform whether or not a Green Belt release of land for housing will be required
  • inform whether action may need to be taken in order to ensure that sites become deliverable
  • inform whether policies need to be reviewed to enable identified sites to come forward for development.

Council officers are undertaking comprehensive assessments of each site in order to identify possible planning constraints and to determine whether the sites are considered to be both deliverable and developable in accordance with the guidance set out in PPS3.

It should be noted that the SHLAA itself will not determine whether a site will be allocated for housing development. At this stage the Council is simply assessing all sites that have some potential.

Sites for housing will be allocated in the Site Allocations Development Plan Document, which will be prepared using the evidence in the SHLAA and other studies as a starting point.  It will involve the community in the choices to be made from the outset through wide reaching public consultation.  The process will be subject to independent Examination.

It should be stressed that although the study must include the assessment of greenfield sites, any future strategy for housing delivery in Woking will only consider greenfield development if there are insufficient suitable brownfield sites available.  This is in line with national policy.

The study is due for completion early in 2009. Any conclusions reached in the study will be made without prejudice to the determination of any subsequent planning applications in respect of sites assessed.

For further information about the SHLAA, please contact the Planning Policy team by email planning.policy@woking.gov.uk or by telephone on 01483 743871.