Colchester City Council Preferred Options Local Plan Regulation 18 Consultation 2025

Policy references
HBF would recommend that each of the paragraphs in the policies are numbered for ease of referencing. This will not only help at the examination but also for both decision makers and applicants. Paragraphs would be helpful and add to clarity for decision makers and applicants. Should the local plan be adopted.

NPPF consultation
In December 2025 the Government published a consultation on the new NPPF. HBF recognise this will have no weight until it is formally adopted but once adopted the Council may need to give weight to some aspects of the policy. On the basis of paragraph 4 and 8 in Annex A of the draft NPPF being consulted on, this local plan, which the Council propose to submit under the current plan making process, will be examined under the NPPF24. However, it is also notable that in relation to decision making Annex A also states that from the date the new NPPF is published local plan policies that are “…any way inconsistent with national decision making policies in this Framework should be given very limited weight, except where they have been exam-ined and adopted against this Framework”. Therefore, should this new iteration of the NPPF be adopted un-changed the Council may need to have regard to national policies for decision making given that any inconsistency would effectively render policies in the local plan that are not consistent with the new Framework redundant as soon as the local plan is adopted.

Duty to co-operate
Following the publication of the Housing and Planning Minister Written Ministerial Statement on the 27th of November the Government have decided not to save the Duty to Co-operate. Therefore, once the relevant regulations have been enacted Colchester will no longer be under a duty to co-operate with its neighbours. However, this does not remove the policy requirement in the NPPF to maintain effective co-operation nor the need to consider, in addition to their own housing needs, “… any needs that cannot be met within neighbour-ing areas …” as set out in paragraph 62 of the NPPF. The only difference arising from the the removal of the duty is that a failure to co-operate effectively is a soundness matter that can be rectified through main modi-fications.
6. With regard to the potential for unmet housing needs the HBF note that paragraph 2.56 of the Sustainability Appraisal states that initial discussions with neighbouring authorities progressing plans did not raise any is-sues in respect to unmet development needs, but we could find no other evidence on what co-operation has taken place – such as statements of common ground as required by paragraph 26 of the NPPF. As such it is not possible at this stage to comment on the effectiveness of any co-operation that has taken place with regard to housing or other cross boundary issues. Any co-operation must also extend beyond those neighbouring authorities at a similar stage of plan making.

The Council will require a Health Impact Assessment on residential developments in excess of 50 units. HBF do not consider such a policy to be necessary. The health impacts of development across Colchester should be considered as part of plan making with the policies in the plan ensuring that development addresses the health objectives for the area. As such sites that are compliant with the relevant policies in this plan should not need to complete a health impact assessment. The only situation where a HIA may be appropriate for residential schemes would be for larger windfall schemes that that have not been considered as part of plan preparation and may negatively on health services.

Housing requirement

Based on the most recent data the standard method establishes the housing needs in Colchester as 1,293 dpa. The Council are proposing to meet the housing over the plan period with ST5 stating that the Council will de-liver a minimum of 20,800 homes over the plan period. While not a soundness issue HBF would suggest that the annual housing requirement is also included within the body of the policy for the sake of clarity.
However, the Council will need to amend the period over which housing needs are considered in order to be consistent with paragraph 22 of the NPPF which states that plans should as a minimum look ahead for at least 15 years. Based on the LDS the expectation is that the plan will be submitted in October of next year following the regulation 19 consultation in the summer. As a minimum the time from submission to adoption will take a minimum of 12 months. Therefore, it is likely that the plan will be adopted in early 2028. As a result, the plan will look ahead for 13 full years from point of adoption rather than the required 15 years. In order for the plan to be consistent with national policy it must be extended by two years to 2042/43. This will increase the overall housing requirement to be met in this local plan to 24,567 homes.

The Council are not proposing in this consultation to use a stepped housing requirement. While HBF recognises that PPG allows for stepped trajectories, a key starting point for any spatial strategy should be to ensure that the plan delivers homes consistently across the plan period and does not seek to unnecessarily delay the delivery of new homes on the basis of the sites that are selected to meet housing needs. Therefore, the Council must do all it can to avoid pushing back the delivery to new homes to later in the plan period on the basis of its spatial strategy. If the Council choice of strategy reveals it cannot meet needs and does not have a five year land supply on adoption it should seek to allocate additional sites not to amend the trajectory. A stepped trajectory should only be entertained once all other options to ensure a consistent supply of homes across the plan period have been considered and shows that the Council is not, as required by paragraph 68-12 of PPG, unnecessarily delaying meeting identified development needs.
Housing supply
The
Council has identified supply over the proposed plan period of 21,106 homes, just over 300 homes more than the proposed requirement and 3,461 homes below what is required over a policy compliant plan period. The Garden Community will delivery beyond the plan period and will provide some additional supply to meet needs in the additional years. However, the Council will still need to find additional supply in order to meet their housing needs in full. In addition, HBF would also recommend that there is a 10% buffer between the number of homes expected to be delivered over the plan period and the housing requirement. This buffer in supply is required to take account of the fact that not all sites deliver as expected and will ensure that the Council and others can be confident that development needs will be met in full over the plan period and that the plan is therefore both positively prepared and effective.

The Council has not included a housing trajectory within this local plan. While a draft trajectory has been produced to inform infrastructure planning the Council state that further refinement is necessary. As the Council will be aware they are required by paragraph 78 of the to include housing trajectory in the local plan which illustrates the expected rate of housing delivery over the plan period. HBF would recommend that this does not just provides an overall trajectory but also includes the anticipated rate of delivery for each of the specific sites required to meet housing needs as well as the rate of windfall development. Given that the trajectory in the IADP is done in 5 year tranches we would recommend that any trajectory produced for the next iteration of the local plan is provided annually.

The detailed trajectory for each site does not necessarily need to be provided the local plan itself but should form part of the evidence base. Detailed information on supply expectations is essential in order for those parties with an interest in the local plan, as well as the Inspector appointed to examine it, can effectively, and easily, scrutinise the assumptions that have been made and the soundness of those assumptions.

10% of delivery on sites of less than one hectare

The Council will need to ensure that it meets the aims of paragraph 73 of the NPPF in order to support SME developers and promote a good mix of sites in the local plan. In particular it will be important for the Council to ensure the spatial strategy allows the Council to meet limb a) of paragraph 73 that the at least 10% of it housing requirements are on sites of one hectare or less.

In meeting the requirement in paragraph 73 of the NPPF the Council must ensure it is achieved from identi-fied sites – either as an allocation in the local plan or as a site in the Council’s Brownfield Register. The Council must not rely on assumed levels of windfall delivery on small sites to meet this requirement. Such an approach would be inconsistent with the NPPF which defines windfall sites in its Glossary as “Sites not spe-cifically identified in the development plan”. It is important to recognise that the allocation of small sites is a priority and stems from the need to support small house builders by ensuring that they benefit from having their sites identified for development either through the local plan or brownfield register. The effect of an al-location is to take some of the risk out of that development and provide greater certainty that those sites come forward. This in turn will allow the SME sector to grow, deliver homes that will increase the diversity of the new homes that are available as well as bring those homes forward earlier in the plan period.

The Council should also recognise that allocating small sites and supporting SME house builders not only ensures a stronger supply in the short term but also improves the diversity of choice within local housing markets, support local and regional supply chains and are often pivotal in bring forward innovation and sup-porting jobs growth locally, with 1 in 5 of the SME work force comprising of apprentices. A failure to allo-cate small sites will contribute to the continued decline in small and medium sized house builders. Recent re-search by the HBF has found that there are 85% fewer small house builders today than there were 20 years ago and that of a survey of SME house builders 93% said that planning was a major barrier to SME growth. Whilst this decline is due to a range of factors, more allocations of small sites would ease the burden on many SME developers and provide more certainty that their scheme will be permitted, allowing them to se-cure the necessary finance that is often unavailable to SMEs until permission is granted.

HBF welcomes decision not to go beyond the statutory minimum of 10%. We also welcome the identification of specific sites for purchase of credits and that the use of these is a recommendation rather than a requirement as it should be for developer to decide how net gain is met where they cannot be delivered on site.

With regard to cost of delivering BNG we note that the viability assessment use Defra Impact Assessment from 2019. This could significantly underestimate the cost of meeting BNG in Colchester as the cost of off-site credits used in that study are based on the 2019 DEFRA Impact Assessment which assumed costs of these at £11,000. However, our members are experiencing costs of over £30,000 per unit with the cost vary-ing based on the habitat type and the where the offsetting units are being delivered. Evidence on costs of off-site credits shows that in the south of England costs range from £25,000 for neural grassland of medium distinctiveness up to £190,000 for the very high distinctiveness water courses. Careful consideration will need to be given as to the type of BNG that may be required on allocated sites, the level of on-site delivery that is possible and ensure that an viability assessments reflect the potential cost of delivering this habitat offsite.

20. This policy requires a minimum 10% across site area where the baseline is below 10%. HBF does not consider this policy to be sound. The need for tree planting should be based on the character of the area and the nature of the site, not arbitrary canopy cover figures. In particular there may be good reasons why it is not possible to achieve 10% due to other reason such as the delivery of biodiversity net gain where different habitats are required. While some flexibility is provided at the end of the policy in recognition of this, it seems perverse that in securing improvement in biodiversity related to that site the developer is then required to secure tree provision elsewhere.

As se out above while very little weight can be attached to the current consultation on the NPPF careful attention will need to be given to the outcomes of the consultation and the final document that is adopted. With regard to standards related to carbon emission and energy efficiency standards consideration will need to be given to PM13 which states that other than standards for accessibility, water efficiency and nationally de-scribed space standards local plans should not cover matters already addressed in building regulations. In addition, it is also notable that the latest consultation on the NPPF proposes to amend the Planning and Energy Act 2008 in relation to the setting of local energy efficiency standards that go beyond building regulations to make clear that local plans should not set higher energy efficiency standards for residential development. Once adopted the NPPF would also replace the 2023 Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) ‘Planning – Local Energy Efficiency Standards Update’. As such If PM13 remains both NZ2 and NZ3 would be inconsistent with national policy from the point at which the new NPPF is adopted with limited weight being given to these policies with decision making. In such a situation HBF would suggest that these policies are deleted.

However, at present the Planning and Energy Act 2008 and the WMS allow local planning authorities to set standards that are higher than building regulations, with the WMS noting that “Compared to varied local standards nationally applied standards provide much-needed clarity and consistency for businesses, large and small, to invest and prepare to build net-zero ready homes” and that local standards can “add further costs to building new homes by adding complexity and undermining economies of scale”. After setting out these concerns, the 2023 WMS does go on to state that any standard that goes beyond building regulations should be rejected at examination unless the LPA does not have a well-reasoned and robustly costed rationale that ensures:
• That development remains viable, and the impact on housing supply and affordability is considered in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework.
• The additional requirement is expressed as a percentage uplift of a dwelling’s Target Emissions Rate (TER) calculated using a specified version of the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP).

HBF do not consider the approach set out in NZ1 to be consistent with the WMS nor that the implications of such a policy have been properly assessed in the supporting evidence base. Our detailed points are set out be-low.

The approach proposed by the Councils based on energy use is inconsistent with the approach set out in the WMS and as such is unsound. The intention of the WMS and the Planning and Energy Act was to enable lo-cal authorities to go beyond building regulations but not to set wholly new standards. This was noted in by Justice Lieven’s decision which referred to statement by the Minister at the time where the minister con-firmed that councils “can go further and faster than building regulations, but within the national framework” and that the intention was for “… local authorities, in setting energy efficiency standards, to choose only those standards that have been set out or referred to in regulations made by the Secretary of State, or which are set out or endorsed in national policies or guidance issued by the Secretary of State. That approach was taken with a view to avoiding the fragmentation of building standards, which could lead to different stand-ards applying in different areas of the country …”.

It should also be noted that the Government have considered as part of consultation on the Future Homes Standard whether it was appropriate to use a delivered energy metric such as the one being proposed in the policy position paper and have concluded that these do not offer any additional benefits to those being taken forward by Government. Therefore, if the Council are to require standards above those set out in building regulations they must be expressed as a percentage of the target emission rate and not as an energy use target in order to avoid fragmentation of the standards with different requirements being set in different areas which it must be recognised was not only an expectation of the WMS but also of the legislation that permits council to adopt higher standards in local plan in the first place. As such the HBF do not consider the council to be justified in departing from either the WMS or the Planning and Energy Act (2008).

With regard to viability, the Council’s Viability Assessment includes an uplift of £7,500 per unit to take ac-count of the Future Homes Standard with an additional 8% or 5% uplift to build costs depending on the size of the development. Both these uplift would mean the costs of delivering the proposed standards are not dis-similar to those in set out in the report ‘Ready for Zero’ that was published by the Future Homes Hub in 2023 . However, in addition to considering viability the Council will also need to provide evidence as to the potential impact on the affordability of new homes and the ability of the development industry to meet these standard when the plan is adopted.

With regard to deliverability of zero carbon homes HBF would not disagree that the proposed standards are technically feasible. However, HBF are concerned as to the impact these requirements will have on the rates at which sites can deliver new homes on all types of sites. Given that the standards proposed are higher than those proposed by Government in the Future Homes Standard and will require higher levels of fabric efficiency, which in turn will require new skills and materials that may not be readily available, HBF are concerned this could slow delivery in the short to medium term as supply chains are developed.

It has been recognised by the FHH that to deliver higher standards will require phased transitional arrangements to enable a steady build-up of skills and ensure quality. The FHH also notes in its report Ready for Ze-ro that even if a short transition period between current standards and those similar to the Councils are pro-posing that this would “… create a high risk of quality problems, inflated costs and, potentially, stalled build programmes.” However, HBF could find no evidence that the Council has considered whether its proposed standard will impact on the rate at which new homes can be built. The Council will need to speak directly to a range of housebuilders operating in Reading to understand the impact of its policy on the rate at which homes will be delivered on its allocated sites. Without any consideration of delivery then the Council’s decision to go beyond what is required by building regulations is clearly unjustified

While HBF understands the desire for LPAs to go further it must be recognised that current policy outlines that even where development can viably implement higher standards this must be within a consistent technical framework and approach to assessing building performance against those technical standards. Indeed, this has long been the case in planning policy with paragraph 159b of the NPPF stating that “Any local requirements for the sustainability of buildings should reflect the Government’s policy for national technical standards”.

If the Councils have the evidence to show that the policy is deliverable, they will need to ensure that all other policies in the local plan are consistent with delivering the levels of embodied carbon being proposed. The most energy efficient design will inevitably lead to less variety in the built form in order to reduce the surface area of the building. This will need to be reflected in design policies and any design codes that are produced to ensure that development is not refused for seeking to meet energy efficiency standards but, for example, not being designed in the character of the local area.

As with NZ1 should the NPPF be adopted with PS13 unchanged, this policy should be deleted as it will be inconsistent with national policy. In addition, HBF have a number of other concerns. HBF do not consider this requirement to be consistent with national policy. In effect this Council are proposing a new technical standard without any formal testing as to whether the development industry can actually reasonable meet this standard consistent from the point at which the plan is adopted. There is as yet limited understanding as whether there are sufficient low carbon alternatives to certain building materials to achieve the standard, the potential cost of meeting this standard and the availability of evidence as to the embodied carbon of different materials and products. Without comprehensive national testing as to what is actually deliverable the Council should not be seeking to impose new technical standard on the building industry.

he Council also do not appear to have taken into account the cost of meeting this standard in the viability assessment. This may have been included in the 8 to 10%. However as stated above, this uplift alongside the £7,500 per unit cost of meeting the Future Homes Standard is probably sufficient to cover the cost of meeting NZ1 and as such no allowance has been made for embodied carbon. As with reducing carbon emissions from operational energy use HBF considers it best that such matters addressed at a national level to avoid different approaches and standard being set in different areas. The housebuilding industry is working with the Future Homes Hub it to develop a roadmap to reducing embodied carbon and whilst Council’s may want to go further faster HBF have concerns that this will impact on the deliverability of development with a disproportionate impact on SME developers.

Therefore, HBF consider the policy to be unsound, and it should be deleted.

HBF welcomes the flexibility within this policy which allows for other evidence to provide to support an alternative housing mix. This recognises that the LHNA is a snap shot in time across the borough and as such may lack relevance in some locations. However, we would suggest that the table in part a is removed given that the evidence relating to mix could change over time. Part a should simply state that residential development will be supported where it is informed by the most recent local housing needs assessment. informed by most recent local housing needs assessment.