Draft Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance consultation

The adopted Replacement Local Development Plan (RLDP, March 2024), has a key role in ensuring new housing development incorporates a mix of market and affordable housing, thereby contributing to the development of sustainable, cohesive communities.

Draft Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) has been prepared for public consultation. The SPG is intended to support and provide further direction on implementation of the Affordable Housing policies contained within the adopted RLDP. It outlines how Affordable Housing should be delivered through the planning system throughout Bridgend County Borough. New Affordable Housing must meet ‘housing need’ as identified in the Local Housing Market Assessment or respond to a local need identified by the Local Housing Authority, while enabling placemaking-led sustainable development. This multi-faceted approach is key to ensuring balanced, socially cohesive and sustainable communities.

Once adopted, the Affordable Housing SPG will be a material consideration in the determination of all planning applications for residential development including applications for renewal of consents. It will update and replace the previous adopted SPG 13: Affordable Housing (2015).

The draft SPG provides updated, specific guidance on:

• Affordable housing requirements for residential developments, including the level of provision by location along with the type, tenure, size and standard of affordable housing dwellings required;
• Sustainable clustering of Affordable Housing and the requirement for all developments to comply with sustainable placemaking principles;
• The use of planning obligations (via Section 106 agreements) to secure Affordable Housing provision for the lifetime of the development;
• The nomination process for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs);
• Definitions of nomination rights and qualifying households (incorporating local housing need and local connections);
• The RLDP’s approach to off-site provision and financial contributions in lieu of on-site provision of Affordable Housing;
• The use of Social Housing Grant (the main capital programme funded by Welsh Government and made available to RSLs) to deliver Affordable Housing in relation to the planning system;
• The setting of new transfer values for nil-grant Affordable Housing secured through Section 106 as part of major residential developments;
• How issues surrounding development viability may be considered in respect of Affordable Housing provision; and
• Affordable Housing exception sites (affordable housing on land that would not normally be used for housing).

The public consultation will run for 6 weeks between 13/02/2025 and 27/03/2025.