​This was our rationale for allocating sites in the Plan

Q&A ON SITE ALLOCATIONS RATIONALE

Q: ​Having read the proposal for the above, I find this strategy a bit worrying.
It seems that any sites that were previously refused, could now be considered for development. A case in point was the proposal for bungalows at the rear of Mill Close that had a unanimous " thumbs down" due to many factors including no shops, bus route, infrastructure of any kind and the site itself housing many wildlife species.
One major aspects of proposed building development that is never taken into consideration, it the impact on surrounding properties. Saham Toney is in a sense, a backwater of Watton, with narrow roads that are not suitable for constant, heavy vehicles . There is building going on somewhere in Chequers Lane and day after day, there are heavy industrial vehicles using the roads back and forth with huge trailers filled with rubble. I had a near miss during the week as I came to the junction of Ovington Road and Bell Lane. Just as I was approaching the junction, a tractor pulling a huge trailer full of building rubble, swung round from Chequers Lane into Ovington Road, having to come onto the wrong side of the road to get round, and if I'd been a few seconds earlier, would have had a head on collision, as these vehicles do not slow down at all.
I came to the exhibition earlier in the year and many points were bought up for concern regarding the reasons for not having too many sites allocated for building. I can't see these reasons changing if proposals previously refused could now be considered.
As we know, developers get profit for building larger properties, not affordable housing. We do not need expensive properties and without serious thought given to development, we could end up as one of those awful so called 'garden cities'.
This area will be unrecognisable if every plot of land is built on. We have little enough green space.
 
A: Many thanks for your feedback. I understand your concerns and hope I can reassure you about them. But first I must emphasise that it is not the aim of the Neighbourhood Plan to protect the village from all development, rather it tries to ensure we get the right type of development in the right places.
Regarding developments previously refused, I suspect rather than Mill Close you are referring to Mill View as an example? Like you, I was one of many villagers who objected to the application to build 10 bungalows to the north of Mill View. If indeed this was what you meant, I should point out that although the application was refused by Breckland Council, on appeal it was approved by a Government Inspector (on 9 October 2017). I say this so that when building commences, you do not think that is in any way connected to our site allocation process. Unfortunately there is nothing the Neighbourhood Plan can do to prevent that development going ahead.
With respect I'd also like to point out that our site allocation strategy makes no mention of previously refused sites. Perhaps you mean the approach taken to sites previously assessed by Breckland Council? If so those were not planning applications; but the result of a "call for sites" similar to the one we are now undertaking. In order to ensure a completely fair process any site in the village may be proposed: but it's important to keep in mind the subsequent independent site assessments will use criteria based on all the measures the Neighbourhood Plan applies to prevent inappropriate developments. The large sites put forward to Breckland Council in 2014 and 2015 were rejected by that Council. Our criteria are more stringent and locally focused than theirs were, so even were those sites to be proposed again (which they have not been to date), I cannot envisage them being recommended by the independent assessors. 
Further protection is given by placing a limit on the total number of new houses that can be built up to 2036. We must follow Breckland Council policy in this respect and while the final number is still being determined, our allocation is likely to be in the range 33-42. What this means, is that even if our call for sites resulted in sites for say, 150 new houses being put forward, and all were assessed as being acceptable, we would then select the most preferred sites up to the limit of 33-42 new homes. Clearly we would select those that best accord with the Plan's aims and policies, and we will consult villagers on the choices.
Although our strategy doesn't mention it, I agree with you that in theory a site previously refused planning permission could come forward via the call for sites, and would then be assessed along with all others. But the assessment will include a review of each site's previous planning history, if any, and a previous refusal would clearly count heavily against a site.
I fully understand and sympathise with the points you make about the state and safety of our roads. Once all sites have been independently assessed, we will consult with Norfolk County Council Highways specialists about all that are deemed potentially suitable and use their advice to help decide on preferred sites to be allocated in the Plan. But it is important to be aware that the Plan's policies cannot dictate improvements to our roads or deal with road safety issues. Under planning rules significant road improvements would only be made in parallel with very significant development, of the sort you highlight in your garden cities example. Since such development is not going to happen, neither will road improvements of any note. The Plan does try to mitigate this via its "Parish Action Points", which as you'll probably remember are a series of initiatives to be taken up by the Parish Council. My own view on those is that the more villagers who directly lobby the Parish Council to implement them, the more chance there is of that happening, but ultimately the Parish Council itself can only lobby bodies such as Norfolk County Council and make as strong a case as possible.
With regard to the size of houses being built the Plan reflects the views you express. The Housing Needs Assessment we carried out earlier this year substantiated what many villagers already know - that there is a greater need for 1 and 2 bedroom houses, than 4 or 5 bedrooms. The site assessments will take that into account.
Unfortunately in this matter there is no ideal solution that all villagers will be happy with. Furthermore although our Plan offers many forms of protection against inappropriate development, all decisions ultimately rest with the Breckland Council planning committee, and even where they refuse applications, permission can be granted via the appeal process, as the Mill View case illustrates. But I'd like to stress our view that allocating sites in the Plan, while an imperfect process, offers a greater degree of protection than not doing so. As I have outlined, sites will be allocated in strict accordance with our Plan's policies. That will very much include an assessment of their location and impact on local roads etc.
You may be aware of the "5 year housing land supply rule"? If not I won't go into it in detail here, but you can find a full explanation of it on our website. In summary it means if Breckland Council has not granted enough planning permissions to satisfy the next 5 years need for houses, the policies in both their Plan and ours carry less weight in planning decisions, and many developers use this as a loophole to push through inappropriate developments. Throughout my 3½ years in the village Breckland Council has not been able to show it meets the 5 year rule, and a number of applications in the village have been approved on that basis alone.
But by allocating sites our Plan's policies will remain in full force providing Breckland Council has approved a 3 year supply of houses. That's a much easier target, which they consistently achieve, so this is a significant benefit of site allocations.
In summary, the process of site allocation is intended to offer the greatest compliance with our Plan's policies and the greatest certainty for all parties. It will have the added advantage of the 3 year rule I've noted above, and we feel that it will be significantly better than the alternative whereby applications would continue to come forward in ad hoc locations and are not assessed as rigorously as the process we will be using.

saham_toney_site_assessment_criteria_draft_17aug2018.pdf
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This is a short presentation given to the Parish Council on 6th August at a meeting when they approved this new work

pc_approval_briefing_06aug2018.pdf
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