By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Cotswold council leaders will write to the Government over the “moronic” housing targets they have been set as speculative developers are already “honing in on greenfield sites”.
Cotswold District Council is among the many authorities which will have to allocate more land to accommodate thousands of new homes each year.
The Government’s changes to the way housing targets for each area are calculated mean Cotswold District Council’s housing needs have more than doubled.
The Cotswolds are in desperate need of affordable housing to help retain the district’s youth.
However, council leaders fear developers may get the go-ahead to build the wrong type of homes in areas which lack the infrastructure or services.
Council leader Mike Evemy (LD, Siddington and Cerney Rural) told the meeting on July 16 he would write to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner setting out the Cotswold District’s unique circumstances.
Around 80 per cent of the land is covered by the Cotswold National Landscape, which is the largest of such designated areas of countryside in England and Wales that are protected for their natural beauty and distinctive character.
“In December 2024, new government housing targets were imposed on this district,” he said.
“This more than doubles the number of new houses we’re required to build every year. A district where 80 per cent of the land, 790 square miles, is designated national landscape.
“This is the largest expanse of national landscape out of 46 areas of natural beauty in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now we have a housing target of 1,036 new homes per year up from 420.”
He said the huge increase means the district does not have a five year housing land supply.
And the council is in a precarious position which is just 1.8 years, down from more than seven years worth of land they had under the previous arrangements.
“But while the goalposts have been moved entirely for us, they’ve been simultaneously made wider for developers,” he said.
“The council is already receiving an increase in speculative planning applications for new homes on greenfield sites.”
He said the housing policies in the local plan, the blueprint for development across the district, cannot be used successfully when considering these applications due to the housing shortfall.
“As it stands, the new targets are set to bring piecemeal housing development in the District,” he said.
“Ticking off the targets but the houses may be built in the wrong places and without the necessary infrastructure.”
He told the meeting he would be writing to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to set out the Cotswolds’ unique circumstances.
He said he would ask her if doubling the District’s housing target is proportionate.
Former council leader Joe Harris (LD, St Michael’s) described the target as “moronic” and blasted the Government for putting the Cotswold District in an “impossible position”. He thanked council officers for their hard work on the local plan.
“They’ve been through hell over the past few years working on the revised local plan and all the stuff with Moreton,” he said. “It’s been really difficult.
“The Government has put us in an impossible position. We are being asked to sign off on a lot of money, a lot of spending, a lot of work on a local plan that might not actually see the light of day because they are going to scrap us as a local authority.
“Their planning changes have rendered our local plan, our neighbourhood plans, if not meaningless, totally undermined them.
“That is an insult to the hard work we have done as a local authority and our local communities who have worked on neighbourhood plans.”
He said he could not believe the Labour Government’s housing targets when they were released in December. “They just seemed so moronic,” Cllr Harris said.
“They are moronic in our context because 80 per cent of our district is an area of outstanding natural beauty.
“They’ve doubled our target, so that means a thousand homes a year, predominantly going in areas that are in the 20 per cent not in the area of outstanding natural beauty.
“It’s crazy. It is madness and it has definitely been done on a spreadsheet by civil servants somewhere, I hope. Because no politician could put their name to this, quite frankly.”