Strategic housing land availability assessment (SHLAA)

North Devon Council, Torridge and West Somerset District Councils and Exmoor National Park Authority are working together to ensure that there is enough suitable land available to deliver future housing requirements.

To do this, each authority is preparing a strategic housing land availability assessment (SHLAA) for their area to identify sites with potential for housing development. It will estimate when sites are likely to be developed to help assess how the area can meet its future housing requirements.

The authorities have prepared a draft methodology based on national guidance, which sets out how they propose to prepare the SHLAA reports for their areas. We would like to invite people to get involved in preparing these SHLAA reports by telling us whether you think the proposed methodology is appropriate.

A six week consultation period started on the 22 January and will run until 4 March 2009.

North Devon and Torridge District Councils have also launched a public 'call for potential housing sites' from 18 February until 1 April 2009. This consultation will allow people to present potential housing sites to us so we can assess them as part of the SHLAA.

We are inviting landowners and local communities to help identify and provide details of any sites, land or buildings that might be appropriate for delivering new housing in the future.

In the interests of sustainability, we encourage the online comments using our Planning Policy Consultation Portal which we share with Torridge District Council. Alternatively, you can complete a separate form (pdf 3.4 kB) for each site and return it, by 1 April 2009:

Email: ldf@northdevon.gov.uk

or write to:

Planning Policy Team
North Devon Council
Civic Centre
North Walk
Barnstaple
Devon