East Devon pushes back over fears Torbay’s housing shortfall could spill into district

East Devon has doubled-down on its opposition to the possibility of having to build even more new homes because Torbay doesn’t think it can hit government targets.

Westminster has set every council in England an annual number of homes it wants them to build, but Torbay looks like it is preparing to fight that number because it thinks it is too high. 

East Devon District Council’s influential strategic planning committee has bolstered its objection to the possibility of taking on some of Torbay’s target because it believes it faces enough of a challenge meeting its own housebuilding figure set by the government.

The committee heard that East Devon feared Torbay was technically implying other Devon councils may need to take on some of its housing quota because of its small size as well as environmental constraints.

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Torbay claims in its draft local plan that housing numbers are a “sub-regional matter that needs to be resolved in cooperation with wider Devon authorities”, prompting concerns that this could lead to pressure on other councils to take some of Torbay’s future housebuilding.

The committee agreed to respond to Torbay, including stating it “remains unconvinced that all options for accommodating housing development in Torbay have been fully explored”.

“I wonder if our response is sufficiently robust as we can hardly meet our own target, never mind some other authority’s miles away,” said Councillor Jess Bailey (Independent, West Hill and Aylesbeare).

“I wonder if we should be a bit more blunt.”

Councillor Geoff Jung (Liberal Democrat, Woodbury and Lympstone) said he had been “very surprised” when he saw the number of homes Torbay was being asked to accommodate.

“While I have sympathy for them, we also have our own problems with finding housing numbers here, so I think our response is appropriate and I will be supporting it.”

Ed Freeman, a senior planning officer at East Devon, agreed there were reasons to be sympathetic towards Torbay’s plight given its small geographic footprint as well as areas that fall under National Landscape designation.

But he acknowledged East Devon also had to battle against finding land to build new homes on with the need to protect areas that have special designations aimed at protecting them.

“Torbay does deserve some credit, as they are buying up former hotels and B&Bs and redeveloping them for housing, so it isn’t that they are not doing anything, and are trying to be proactive,” Mr Freeman said.

“But that’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of the numbers they need, so I don’t think it changes our response to them.”

Mr Freeman added that Torbay’s call for sites, whereby landowners are invited to put forward plots for potential development, had not been overly successful, but thought Torbay could enact a “more proactive approach” given the small size of the council area.

East Devon highlighted that Torbay suggested it could deliver at least 400 homes a year, in line with the long-term average since 1980 – but that is less than half the 950 annual figure the government wants it to achieve.

“Leaving aside issues of whether 950 homes a year could reasonably or acceptably be accommodated in Torbay, it does not set out commentary around whether this number is statistically flawed,” a report prepared for the strategic planning committee said.

“Nor do they seek to apply a case that says that there is not capacity in Torbay but the shortfall should not go elsewhere.”

At present, Torbay’s 309-page local plan is at a draft stage and is out for consultation until Monday 26 January. Once that concludes, the responses will be considered and a redrafted plan will be consulted on in the summer, and subsequently sent to the government for consideration at the end of the year.

It states that it wants to deliver at least 8,000 homes over the plan period – which extends out to 2045 – equivalent to around 400 dwellings per year.

It suggests developments that could accommodate 100 homes or more should provide at least a quarter of the area as employment space, and states that proposals for housing on previously developed land “will be supported unless they cause substantial harm to the economy, environment or amenity”.

The plan accepts the 400 annual figure is “below the government’s target for Torbay of 950 a a year, “but seeks to maximise the delivery of homes within Torbay’s significant environmental and infrastructure limits, and high level of constraint”, the document states.

“It would represent a return to housing delivery levels not seen since the early 2000s and the more benign economic climate of that time,” the local plan states.