Housing (planning policy)

Residents survey

Arun District Council commissioned Acuity, a market research company, to carry out surveys with local residents of the recently developed Kingley Gate scheme in Littlehampton. The report below displays the key findings.

2023 New Housing Development Surveys Littlehampton [pdf] 2MB

Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA)

The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) and Employment and Economic Land Assessment (EELA) have been combined and digitised to create a Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA). Arun District Council has an open ‘call for sites’ policy. To find out more, please see our HELAA page.

Housing Implementation Strategy

Please see the housing land supply page for more information.

Arun’s position is set out in the Housing Implementation strategy which provides information in relation to housing land supply including the calculation of Arun district’s five-year housing supply position, taking into account the requirements of the NPPF and NPPG. The five-year supply is represented by the period from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2021. Additionally, it provides a statement of land supply for the Local Plan period to 2031 and presents the housing trajectory as required by the NPPF. This is Housing-Implementation-Strategy-March-2017 (with meeting notes) [pdf] 1MB

Arun 5 Year Housing Land Supply

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires Local Planning Authorities to, identify and update annually, a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing against their housing requirement.  It should identify a sufficient supply and mix of sites, taking into account their availability, suitability and likely economic viability. To maintain the supply and delivery Local Authorities should also include a trajectory illustrating the expected rate of housing delivery over the plan period.  All this information is contained in the Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) which is published annually - usually in December.

The revised NPPF brought into force the requirement for a Housing Delivery Test and certain triggers on Local Planning Authorities for action.  As a result the council has agreed and published a Housing Delivery Test Action Plan, which can be viewed here: Arun District Council Housing Delivery Test – Action Plan [docx] 567KB. The Arun Housing Delivery Action Plan (HDAP) July 2021 is the second version of the Action Plan first published in June 2019 on the council’s web site in response to the Housing Delivery Test (November 2018) result published for Arun in February 2019. The HDAP document, therefore, only provides a progress update on two specific actions undertaken; the latest HDT result and 5-year housing land supply position based on the AMR 2019/20 - with specific text table and charts updated in certain sections. The main document is otherwise unaltered as the actions and content are to be monitored and updated on an ongoing basis.

Information relating to specific sites can either be found within the latest Authority Monitoring Report or HELAA.

Housing Delivery Test Action Plan annex update

The Planning Policy Committee agreed on 28 November 2023 an Annex update to our Housing Delivery Test Action Plan (HDTAP) (confirmed at full council on 10 January 2024) following further work with developers on Residential Site Delivery Agreements. A full update was not provided at that time as the government had not published the Housing Delivery Test for authorities (usually published in February and retrospectively for 2022).

Annex update to HDTAP [pdf] 99KB

Residential Site Delivery Agreements Lamber Smith Hampton October 2023 [pdf] 705KB

Interim Housing Statement

On the 24 March 2021, the council approved the Interim Housing Statement (January 2021).  The Interim Housing Statement [pdf] 623KB does not introduce new policy but aims to speed up decision making and invite suitable sized housing and placemaking applications on ‘deliverable’ sites in the right locations in Arun.  The Statement provides a ‘Red, Amber, Green’ tick-list tool looking at national and local polices to help applicants to identify and address some of the key matters which once addressed, may speed up the decision making process. However, applicants will need to follow due diligence in considering all national and local policies that may apply and which should be addressed.

Arun Interim Affordable Housing Policy to Accommodate First Homes Policy

Arun District Council has set out how it will accommodate this policy through an interim policy statement published below (until plan making resumes for the Local Plan update and the policy criteria can be viability tested). You should refer to the Government’s First Homes transitional arrangements for policy and decision making. The interim policy statement was approved at Full Council on 25 January 2022 as set out in the excel link below, with examples, and specifies that: 33% of the affordable provision should be ‘Intermediate Housing’ (i.e 25% First Homes and 8% other Intermediate ownership products) and 67% rent:-

That: delivery of the 30% affordable housing required by Local Plan Policy AH SP2 will be expected to comprise the following; 33% ‘Intermediate Housing’ (25% is ‘First Homes’ and 8% other Intermediate ownership products) and 67% rent as illustrated in the table with examples of different scales of development.

Following the decision made by the Planning Policy Committee on 8 June 2023, the ‘Interim Affordable Housing Policy to Accommodate First Homes Policy’ now includes a local connections test based on the council’s ‘Housing Allocations Scheme 2012 Amended 2014, 2016, 2017 & 2018’. This sets out a local connections test for allocating affordable housing, including affordable rent properties to Arun residents. This will help to ensure that local residents and people with a connection to Arun are supported. The document can be accessed here.

The revised Housing Allocations Scheme and connections test (see section 5.6  pages 11 and 12) which now apply, can be accessed here.

Please note that this example spreadsheet has been corrected to refer to "rent", not exclusively "affordable rent" (and intermediate should be rounded down and rent rounded up where necessary). Also note that these spreadsheets now include reference to the council’s local connections tests as described above First homes [xlsx] 13KB. The unprotected Excel calculator can be used to enter your housing number to derive the proportions above First homes calculator [xlsx] 13KB

Arun Housing Absorption Study

Arun District Council has commissioned evidence on the Arun Local Housing Market and its ability to accommodate housing sales and delivery rates i.e. Housing Absorption Study Final Report December 2022. The draft study can be accessed here: Arun Housing Market Absorption Study Final [pdf] 2MB

Arun Housing Need Review

The following study (draft) is being considered by planning policy on 8 June with a recommendation that the study be agreed and uploaded as evidence for plan making.

Arun Housing Advice (18.05.23 Final) [docx] 301KB

Local Plan Housing Need and Housing Mix

The first point in preparation of a Local Plan is establishment of the housing need of an area and the nature or mix of housing that is most appropriate to the population for which it plans.  During the suspension of the Local Plan examination GL Hearn produced an Updated Housing Needs Evidence September 2016 [pdf] 439KB report detailing the latest position, on which the adopted Local Plan was based.  This is therefore the primary point of evidence for these topics.   

Visioning studies 2013

Visioning Study - Angmering [pdf] 5MB and  Visioning Study - Barnham Eastergate Westergate [pdf] 5MB have been prepared in partnership with Arun District Council and a number of the key landowners, to inform the Local Plan and sets out a vision and development principles for how this level of growth might be comprehensively planned and achieved at Angmering and the Barnham, Eastergate, Westergate site. These are strategic documents which are intended to broadly illustrate how and where the growth might be delivered, but acknowledges that further technical studies on viability will be necessary to support the more detailed master planning required for individual sites.

OAN Report 2015

The Objectively Assessed Needs (OAN) Hearing took place. This hearing session formed part of the council’s outline timetable for the development of the Local Plan, as agreed by the Inspector. The purpose of the session was to provide an opportunity for the Inspector to lead discussion and hear views on the council’s re-advertised OAN for market and affordable housing.

In respect of the OAN, the following supporting documents were published:

OAN Report 2015 [pdf] 1MB
Arun District Objectively Assessed Need Summary Paper [pdf] 248KB

Local Plan Statutory Notice Sept 2015 [pdf] 213KB

The OAN representations can be viewed on the Objective Portal.

Other housing documents and links

Update to Publication Plan and Housing Implementation Strategy - Housing Land Supply Updated

Five year Housing Land Supply report

Strategic Development Sites

ADCED76 Additional Info - HELAA sites included in the HIS Trajectory [pdf] 43KB

ADCED77 Housing Land Supply per parish (data) [pdf] 45KB

ADCED77a Housing Land Supply Per parish Summary [pdf] 42KB

Government publications

Government website for new homes fact sheet