HBF has submitted representations on the Buckinghamshire Structure Plan review questioning the purpose of producing the plan at all in the current climate of great uncertainty surrounding Buckinghamshire's future housing requirement.
The Milton Keynes and South Midlands Study and alterations to RPG9 are likely to propose a significant increase in the housing requirement for Bucks to accommodate growth proposed in the Communities Plan for the Milton Keynes area. In Bucks, this equates to an increase in the current housing requirement of some 50% with major additional growth proposed for the Aylesbury area.
In spite of this and despite the fact that there is already an adopted Bucks Structure Plan in place to 2011, and that the Council has not published the urban capacity study on which it bases its proopsed housing distribution, the Council has produced a plan based on the existing RPG9 housing requirement. It suggests that this is little more than a very rushed and ill thought out political response to the abolition of structure plans in the proposed changes to the development planning system.
For further information of a copy of the HBF response, please contact HBF regional planner Pete Errington on 023 8067 1030 or at pete.errington@hbf.co.uk