Further delay in a housing policy for Southampton
A policy for Southampton on family housing has been further delayed. The shambles that is in place continues. As I have posted in the past, at full council in January the Conservatives asked for a policy to be put in place with immediate effect, to protect family housing in the city. The Labour and Liberal parties rejected this and asked for a debate.
This was to have started today, a month and a half since the meeting. You can not accuse them of being slow! This has now been delayed. Thus family housing is still under threat. Yesterday in planning, 28 more flats were passed to be built in the city and no houses. This follows the 251 flats and 16 houses passed at the end of January.
The need to have a policy for the city which provides for family housing of all types at the same time offering a mix of developments so people have a choice is imperative to the city.
The need to address the parking question is also imperative. The council has an inflexible policy on how many spaces can be provided per development. Officers have failed to acknowledge new government guidelines which allow flexibility in relation to the number of spaces that are provided. This should be applied with immediate affect so developers can put in more spaces. Developers often say that they wish to put more spaces in but are told by officers that it will be turned down.
This was to have started today, a month and a half since the meeting. You can not accuse them of being slow! This has now been delayed. Thus family housing is still under threat. Yesterday in planning, 28 more flats were passed to be built in the city and no houses. This follows the 251 flats and 16 houses passed at the end of January.
The need to have a policy for the city which provides for family housing of all types at the same time offering a mix of developments so people have a choice is imperative to the city.
The need to address the parking question is also imperative. The council has an inflexible policy on how many spaces can be provided per development. Officers have failed to acknowledge new government guidelines which allow flexibility in relation to the number of spaces that are provided. This should be applied with immediate affect so developers can put in more spaces. Developers often say that they wish to put more spaces in but are told by officers that it will be turned down.
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