Draft Regulation 18 Sandwell Local Plan

(18) 2. Spatial Strategy

Introduction

2.1 The Sandwell Local Plan can help achieve sustainable development by ensuring that Sandwell benefits from the right development in the right place at the right time. This development will meet the needs of people living and working in the borough, while protecting and enhancing the environment and the unique character of the area.

2.2 The Spatial Strategy as set out in policies and illustrated on the Policies Map provides the overarching basis for the SLP's proposals for growth and infrastructure improvements. In determining the spatial strategy for the Sandwell Local Plan, Sandwell Council balanced sometimes-conflicting elements to ensure it produced a plan that is sound, realistic and sustainable.

2.3 The final choice of spatial strategy for the SLP also took account of the following:

1. known environmental and other planning constraints
2. evidence base;
3. plan vision and objectives;
4. consultation feedback;
5. ongoing engagement with key stakeholders, including adjoining local authorities;
6. testing of options through:
   1. the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) process, which incorporates Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA); and
   2. a Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA);
7. consideration of land availability, viability and existing / future infrastructure capacity; and
8. other plans and strategies affecting Sandwell.

2.4 In March 2020 Sandwell Council declared a Climate Emergency. Council Members agreed that greenhouse gas emissions needed to be reduced to a level compatible with keeping global warming below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. To achieve that, the Council committed to becoming carbon neutral in its own activities by 2030 and to seeing Sandwell become a carbon neutral borough by 2041.

2.5 The SLP addresses this through adopting a suite of policies designed to help Sandwell mitigate and adapt to the changing climate at a strategic level, in line with the Council's adopted Climate Change Strategy. Climate change will also be a cross-cutting theme for the SLP, and every opportunity will be taken to address appropriate mitigation and adaptation across all topic areas.

2.6 There is still, despite the number of housing sites that have been identified and allocated, a shortfall in the numbers of houses that need to be built to meet identified needs. Housing need is calculated using the Government's standard method based on household growth projections.

• Sandwell needs to identify land for 29,773 homes by 2041.
• The supply of suitable residential land based on the most recent evidence stands at 11,167 homes.
• There is an unmet need for 18,606 homes.
• The SLP provides for around one third of the housing need on the land that is available.

2.7 There is a finite supply of land readily available for development and it is very likely that there is no scope to meet Sandwell's housing need within Sandwell itself. The Duty to Co-operate means that the Council is in communication with neighbouring authorities and is actively seeking their agreement to accommodate some of Sandwell's unmet need through their own housing provision.

2.8 Sandwell is a borough with high levels of poor health and deprivation and a lower-than-average life expectancy. The people of Sandwell experience significant inequalities in health when compared to the rest of England. On average, they do not live for as long as people in other areas of England and spend more of their lives ill or disabled.

2.9 The largest influences on physical and mental health are the social determinants of health, for example, education, employment, social networks, housing, access to blue and green spaces and active modes of travel. Therefore, the SLP will look to support the right development in the right places so that these aspects can be positively impacted.

2.10 Health and wellbeing is a cross-cutting theme that will be addressed throughout the Local Plan. The SLP will promote healthy living and create opportunities for active lifestyles and healthy transport choices including walking, cycling and outdoor recreation. Later stages of the plan will be accompanied by a Health Impact Assessment.

2.11 In recent years patterns of shopping have changed radically and perhaps permanently in some cases, predominantly due to the rise in online shopping and the impacts of the COVID19 pandemic. The role of centres is increasingly moving away from their traditional primary functions. While there will clearly remain demand for in-person shopping and retail-related activities, centres will also need to provide additional draws / opportunities (such as for leisure, education, community uses and recreation) to offset the loss in shopping-related footfall and to help retain their vitality and viability.

2.12 The Plan provides a flexible policy framework to allow centres to serve the future growth identified in Sandwell (particularly housing and employment) and to diversify. It also provides strict tests to defend centres against proposals that could undermine them, such as further out-of-centre developments.

2.13 In terms of job numbers, the three main employment sectors in Sandwell are retail and wholesale, manufacturing and health and social care. Sandwell plays a stronger or more disproportionate role within the wider economy than the national average in the areas of manufacturing, electricity, gas and air conditioning, water supply and waste management, transportation and storage and retail and wholesale.

2.14 Employment land need is based on economic forecasts in the EDNA up to 2041.

• Sandwell is subject to a demand for 185ha of employment land.
• The supply of land available and suitable for employment use is 42ha (after completions between 2020 – 2022 are considered). This includes windfall supply, generated through intensification / recycling, and includes a vacant land supply of 29ha.
• Based on the amount of land required to grow the economy, there is a shortfall of around 143ha.
• In addition, the plan allocates 1,177ha of occupied employment as strategic, local or other employment land.

2.15 Therefore, ensuring that an adequate supply of employment land is maintained throughout the plan period will be essential in enabling long term balanced growth to be sustained. The key issues to be addressed in the SLP are as follows:

• Allocate land for new development within Sandwell, to facilitate growth and diversification of the economy
• Accommodate a variety of business needs including high technology manufacturing and logistics sectors.
• Protect and enhance land and premises within existing employment areas where this provides for the needs of jobs and businesses.
• Recognise that some sites will become unsuitable for continued employment uses and to facilitate their redevelopment to alternative uses.
• Enable local communities to share the benefits of economic growth.

2.16 New housing and economic development will put pressure on existing services and utilities but may also create opportunities to provide infrastructure solutions. The SLP will need to provide clear guidance on the provision of suitable and sufficient infrastructure to support the regeneration and growth of Sandwell. Much of this infrastructure will need to be provided before or alongside new development and will need to be subject to viability considerations to ensure it does not make the development financially undeliverable.

2.17 Despite its industrial heritage and highly urban nature, Sandwell is home to several significant areas of green and open space, a network of wildlife corridors and sites with significant ecological and environmental value and several historic and architecturally significant buildings and locations.

2.18 The key issues addressed in the SLP include:

• Nature Conservation
• Nature Recovery Network and Biodiversity Net Gain
• Provision, retention and protection of trees, woodlands and hedgerows
• Historic Character and Local Distinctiveness of the Black Country
• Geodiversity and the Black Country UNESCO Global Geopark
• Canals
• The protection and enhancement of designated and undesignated heritage assets
• Rejecting poor design

2.19 In view of the levels of both housing and employment land needs, it is becoming apparent that Sandwell will not be able to meet them either within the borough or across the plan period in full. To try to do so would result in significant and harmful levels of overdevelopment in the urban areas and the loss of open and green spaces across the district; even then, development needs would not be fully met.

2.20 This degree of overdevelopment would inevitably have an adverse effect on the living environment, health and wellbeing of Sandwell's residents, alongside the exacerbation of climate change impacts and the degradation of the natural and built environment, habitats and green and blue infrastructure.

2.21 Sandwell has very little green belt (it falls mainly within Sandwell Valley) and very few vacant / unused open spaces; the areas of undeveloped and open land it does contain are extremely important to the borough's environment and the health and wellbeing of its population.

2.22 During the preparation of the SLP, Sandwell Council identified and tested a series of options relating to the potential quanta and distribution of housing and employment growth. These were then subjected to an impartial assessment of their sustainability, which demonstrated that the social, environmental and economic implications of the options identified for the spatial strategy were interrelated and varied.

2.23 Given the outcomes of the assessment, the Council then considered what the most appropriate direction of growth might be for Sandwell, in relation to both opportunities and constraints and given the fact that the borough would not be able to meet its housing and employment requirements in full even if significant areas of open land were further identified and allocated for development.

2.24 The Council needed to strike a balance between maximising the realistic amount and capacity of development land available to it and working towards delivering the aims set out in the SLP Vision. The Vision pictures a borough that could deliver both economic and housing growth while improving the health and life chances of its residents, addressing the challenges of climate change and protecting and enhancing its natural and built environment.

2.25 There was little scope to identify or allocate greenfield land for new housing or employment development without adversely affecting vulnerable land uses, and to do so would also run counter to the Council's stated aims in relation to creating a healthy and active borough, maintaining and enhancing the natural and built environment and tackling the impacts of climate change. As a result, allocation of greenfield land has only been undertaken if that site was a strategic size and in a sustainable location and the loss of any open or green space could be fully mitigated, by being replaced by better quality green / blue infrastructure, open spaces and / or facilities.

2.26 Intended land uses have also been considered, with proposals for housing and employment taking precedence over other forms of use or activities more suited to town centres or in previously developed areas.

2.27 The original Black Country Core Strategy identified a number of sites in employment use as suitable for reallocation to help meet housing needs. This was undertaken on the basis that the Black Country's employment base was understood to be reducing in size as the nature of economic activity in the area changed. However, the anticipated fall-off in the level of manufacturing and industrial activity did not occur, and it became apparent during the drafting of the Black Country Plan that there was not only the need to maintain a healthy supply of employment land but also an increasing demand for additional suitable and sizeable sites for such uses. As a result, the potential supply of brownfield sites suitable for conversion from employment to housing use has effectively been reduced, to maintain economic stability and allow for growth.

2.28 The Council has undertaken an assessment of the various housing and employment options available to it for meeting local needs and promoting climate change mitigation, environmental protection and the delivery of renewed and healthy communities. As a result of these considerations, it has identified a strategic approach to development that combines the delivery of a realistic and meaningful amount of growth to meet local needs with a forward-looking and innovative environmental approach to development in Sandwell. This will deliver what it is referring to as the Balanced Green Growth option for the delivery of development in Sandwell.

2.29 The balanced green growth approach will allow Sandwell to provide a significant quantum of housing and additional employment opportunities in the borough. At the same time, it promotes a bold strategy that supports the delivery of climate change adaptation and mitigation, environmental protection and enhancement, the conservation and enhancement of the historic environment and the delivery of green and blue infrastructure. This in turn will support the Council's wider aims and objectives in improving the health (physical and mental), wellbeing and life chances of people in Sandwell.

2.30 Balanced Green Growth will provide the quantum of development identified previously using the following approach, which is also included in Policy SDS1:

(2) Balanced Green Growth

1. maximise climate change adaptation and mitigation through the creation, protection and improvement of parks, woodland and tree planting, open spaces, landscapes and habitats across the borough;
2. protect areas of ecological value, valuable habitats and open spaces within and beyond urban areas;
3. conserve the historic and archaeological environment and protect areas with geological and landscape value;
4. create new public open spaces to serve new housing developments;
5. promote the use of zero- and low-carbon designs, building techniques, materials and technologies in all new development;
6. deliver as much new development as possible on previously developed land and sites;
7. allocate housing in locations with the highest levels of sustainable transport access to residential services (retail provision, schools, healthcare facilities, fresh food, employment etc.);
8. regenerate existing housing and employment areas and help them deliver:
   1. cleaner, more energy-efficient and more intensive areas of growth; and
   2. improvements to the environmental, climate change, accessibility and socio-economic capacity of existing residential and employment areas
9. allocate new employment land where sustainable access and good public transport links are available;
10. take advantage of existing and improved infrastructure capacity to maximise development on new sites.

2.31 The Balanced Green Growth approach forms the basis of the Sandwell Local Plan's Development Strategy (Policy SDS1) and informs the aims and objectives of both the strategic and local policies in the rest of the plan. This spatial strategy is considered to offer a positive, deliverable and sustainable approach to meeting development needs for the plan period. It has been informed by Sustainability Appraisal and reflects local priorities and national policy, including the NPPF.

2.32 The spatial strategy is crucial in shaping the pattern of growth that will occur over the plan period and has formed the basis for the allocation of strategic sites across Sandwell. It will also help to ensure that the planned housing and employment growth is supported by appropriate investment in the infrastructure needed to create sustainable communities.

(1) Figure 2 - Sandwell Spatial Map