THE Hampshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has emphasised the need for affordable homes in its response to a public consultation on Britain’s housing crisis.

The consultation document drawn up by the Government – called Planning for the Right Homes in the Right Places – sets out proposals to boost housing supply and includes a standard method for calculating local authorities’ housing need.

But CPRE Hampshire believes this method will result in a further increase in disparity between areas of differing wealth, with yet more housing and investment channelled to already wealthier and prosperous areas to the detriment of pooreer areas.

Policy group chairman Christopher Napier said: “The proposed method of assessing housing need perpetuates the myth that simply building more houses in areas of high housing prices will somehow improve affordability, when evidence is already clear that it will not.

“The housing market is broken and the real need is to build many more houses of a type and size affordable for the younger generation now largely excluded from the housing market. A policy must be designed which is targeted at the 25 to 34-year-old age group.”

The housing need formula, as proposed, has no relationship with availability of infrastructure, public transport options, water resources, employment or the impact on protected areas, such as in the New Forest, according to CPRE Hampshire.

The charity is concerned that the proposed increase in housing numbers, combined with the Government proposals to consider local plans out-of-date after five years from adoption, will lead to a return to speculative applications by developers claiming lack of a five-year supply based on the new housing need assessment (which is proposed to apply immediately where plans are more than five years old).

According to CPRE, parts of southern Hampshire will be expected to accommodate additional homes, and this will extend into East Hampshire, which will mean extension of developments into sensitive rural areas and villages.

Mr Napier added: “The assessment of housing need contained in a local plan should be regarded as fixed and valid for an absolute minimum of five years from the time that the plan is adopted. Otherwise the concept of a plan-led system becomes meaningless. This would magnify uncertainty and plunge communities back into an era of free for all and planning by appeal.

“If local plans become out of date in this way, then so will neighbourhood plans, likely leading to much disillusion within communities when they realise that their neighbourhood plan will not endure for the stated period, despite being endorsed by community referendum and the result of much dedicated work by individuals.”

CPRE Hampshire is campaigning for a more strategic approach to planning across the county.