Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the revised Joint Spatial Plan for South Gloucestershire allows the building of affordable homes in the Filton and Bradley Stoke area.

Wherever possible we want to allow decisions about the future of areas to be taken locally without the involvement of central government.

Because of his quasi-judicial role in the planning system, the Secretary of State is unable to comment on the detail of local plans at examination. The authorities involved in the Joint Spatial Plan for the West of England, including South Gloucestershire, have choices to make about how they want to proceed with their plan given the recommendation from their Planning Inspectors that it should be withdrawn. The policies in any revised plan will be locally determined and will then be assessed by independent Inspectors for their soundness.

The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that housing needed for different groups in the community should be assessed and reflected in planning policies, including making sufficient provision for affordable housing.

The government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has delivered over 430,000 affordable homes since 2010. We have made £9 billion available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022 to deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes of a wide range of tenures, including at least 12,500 for social rent.

On 18 September 2018 we announced an additional £2 billion of long term funding certainty for housing associations. This extra funding will deliver more affordable homes and stimulate the sector’s wider building ambitions, through strategic partnerships.

On 27 June 2019, we opened bidding on £1 billion of this funding through Homes England.