New out-of-town sites for housing to be found
THE introduction of more local centres or expanding current ones in the Island Development Plan, enabling more housing and community facilities to be built outside of St Peter Port and St Sampson’s, should be identified by the Development & Planning Authority before the end of the year, its president has said.
Victoria Oliver revealed last week that more local centres should need to be allocated to help meet housing demand. A decision on which areas could be rezoned will be made before the end of the year.
Deputy Oliver said she did not want to pre-empt the review scoping progress, which is still to be considered and agreed by the DPA, but did highlight that the Capelles centre would be likely to be looked at again.
‘Capelles was flagged by the inspectors following the Island Development Plan inquiry, along with looking at the current main and local centres to see if there is a scope for potentially extending,’ she said.
‘Extending might mean making a more rounded boundary, and there are some anomalies where people have thought they were in a local centre but have just missed out, so it could be things like that.’
Deputy Oliver announced in the States last week that land use will be part of the upcoming IDP review, which is aimed to be completed before the next general election in 2025.
‘Scoping is being done at the moment and by December we will know what scope is in and then going forward it will be full steam ahead to get done hopefully before 2025.
‘It all depends what allocation of housing sites have gone forward and that would have to be a variable as well.’
The local centres are enshrined in planning to enable ‘some limited development’ within and around the edges of the other main parish or local centres to enable community growth and the reinforcement of sustainable centres’.
They are not targeted for ‘substantial levels of development’ but planning should make provision for ‘an adequate level of development’ to support their roles as ‘socially inclusive and diverse communities and neighbourhoods’.
