Kirklees Council calls for more land to address shortage

In November 2023, the council revealed it had missed its housebuilding goals, achieving only 67 per cent of the housing required by the government.

Now, the council is working to catch up. Coun Graham Turner, cabinet member for finance and regeneration, said it had made ‘significant’ improvements to its planning process. “The last figures we had showed that we approved 77 per cent of applications, beating the national average of 71 per cent,” he told Property Post. “We’ve put significant changes in to speed up the process."

However, the council urgently needs landowners to come forward with potential development sites.

Coun Turner said: "The number of landowners coming forward has slowed down and we haven’t got as much land as we would like to have.”

He added: "We need more land to be submitted than we need because some of it won’t take the number of houses we might initially allocate because of flood risks and the topography.”

The Government has committed to providing 1.5m new homes over the course of this parliament. Nationally, this means building 370,000 dwellings per year – more than 1,000 a day – and it has outlined several changes to planning regulations which it hopes will streamline the process for developers.

To meet these new targets Kirklees Council is tasked with building a minimum of 1,840 new homes annually, up from 1,730 previously.

Coun Turner said: “We need land across the borough but we probably need a bit more in north Kirklees because that’s where our population seems to be growing fastest.

“Ideally it would be as near as possible to decent transport links. We’re going to have the high speed link across the Pennines so places near those new stations and upgraded stations would be great.”

Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said housebuilders would be handed swifter access to build new homes around England’s commuter train stations.

She said a “zoning scheme”, in which the presumption would be in favour of development in key areas such as those around train stations, would be part of reforms in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure bill.

James Wimpenny, chief executive of Wimpenny Land & Build and chair of the Kirklees Development Consortium, said: “This is an opportunity for land owners to suggest land to be included in this plan. They (the council) will consider all applications submitted and decide on their suitability for housing provision. This is of primary importance to private landowners and small to medium sized developers who perhaps have marginal sites or ones that are considered perhaps more difficult to develop.

“Because of the nature of some of these sites only local developers would be prepared to take them on rather than the national house builders who prefer the larger and some may say easier sites to develop.”

Under the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) announced in December, if councils cannot hit their mandatory housing targets by building on brownfield sites then they will be required to review their greenbelt boundaries.

Councils would also have to focus on building on the “grey belt”, which refers to parts of the green belt, such as wasteland and old car parks, which appear like brownfield sites.

Beautiful houses, amazing restaurants and more - get our Lifestyle newsletter

Mr Wimpenny said: “A lot of the general public are rightly concerned that some of this new development is going to have to include some green belt sites. The expression “concreting over the green belt” is much mooted but this should not necessarily be the case.

“Some such sites may be form part of the greenbelt but can include disused or derelict sites which would not have a detrimental effect on the landscape if developed with consideration to their surroundings.

“This is now being unofficially classed as “grey belt” and is a sensible approach to identifying developable land without necessarily paving over green pastures.

“Additionally there are small sites of natural infill which can be build upon without detracting from the local street scene.So now is the time to consider any land that you have and take the opportunity to capitalise it whilst helping councils meet their seemingly impossible targets.”