Issue - meetings

The Board received the annual Authority Monitoring Reports (AMR) for Housing and Employment 2024-25.  Local Planning Authorities were required to publish information on an annual basis that demonstrated progress with Local Plan preparation, reported any activity relating to the duty to co-operate, any information which related to indicators in the Plan and any policies which were not being implemented. 

The Delivery and Allocations Local Plan (DALP) set out housing supply and location priorities for the Borough.  The adopted Plan stated that there would be an additional 8,050 net homes provided between 2014 and 2037; an average rate of 350 dwellings per annum.  The housing report showed that during the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, 387 net houses had been completed, 87 of which were affordable housing.  There was also 164 units currently under construction.

The DALP also stated that over the lifetime of the Local Plan (2014-2037), the Council would provide approximately 180 ha of land for employment purposes.  During 2024/25 there had been 24.84 ha gross employment land completions, 22.12 ha (net) of employment land completed within a key urban regeneration area and 11% of completions were on Brownfield sites.

Members of the Board received copies of two infographic handouts which listed the key statistics from both the Housing and Employment Annual Monitoring Reports for 2024/25.

The following additional information was provided in response to Members questions/comments:

·       Processing of planning applications was very market driven i.e. if people were buying, developers would build and when not, the market slowed down; 

·       Since the DALP was published, the figure for net homes had increased and the Council had granted over 1,000 applications in Widnes alone;

·       Brownfield sites were difficult/expensive to build on and therefore not always attractive to developers; one third of the Borough was still Green Belt;

·       There was no rationale of splitting new builds between Widnes and Runcorn; it was dependent on where developers wanted to build;

·       Build on Brownfield sites went through peaks and troughs and was dependent on various factors including land being available; and

·       It was noted that a lot of the new build sites in Halton largely consisted of 4-5 bedroom properties.  However, affordable housing had to be included on all new sites and Halton’s housing stock was predominantly Council Tax bands A and B.  Whilst there was a commitment to address the housing crisis it was also important to encourage people to either stay living in the Borough or attract people to come and live here.  

Following discussions, it was agreed that at the meeting in February 2026, the Board would receive a presentation detailing the Brownfield, Greenfield and Greyfield sites in the Borough.

RESOLVED: That the Board endorse the draft AMR’s so that the documents can be made publicly available and published on the Council’s website.