Arguably, few major British cities have needed a local development plan as badly as Cardiff, with a population forecast to grow from 320,000 now to 400,000 in 10 years’ time.
Yet the LDP that was endorsed by Cardiff’s Labour-controlled council at the end of January means the city only now has its first agreed plan since 1996 – yes, a full 20 years.
It has been a tortuous path.
The 1996 plan significantly underestimated housing need, and a plan proposed in 2010 was scuppered by the Welsh government because of its apparent over-reliance on brownfield development. Nearby local authorities have also had difficulties achieving their complementary targets because of delays in identifying appropriate brownfield sites . In 2014 there were calls from resident groups for a referendum before an eventual plan was put before councillors.
The industry is scathing about the council’s failure to get a solution until now. “The authority has failed to have an adequate housing supply since 2008, with completions at a 30-year low of 474 in 2012-13,” says Jonathan Smart of Cushman & Wakefield.
He feels the delay has led to pent-up demand and, in places, existing homes reaching unaffordable prices.
Even the council agrees. “Recent annual build rates have been lower than in previous years, reflecting the constricted supply owing to the lack of a plan,” says a spokeswoman.
So the LDP now in place seeks to make up for lost time (see box, p87) with a proposal for 41,400 homes over its formal duration of 2016 to 2026. Some 12,200 have already been built, 10,800 are in planning or under construction, and 18,000 remain to be built. Much of the future development will be in five clearly-identified urban extensions.
Yet the agreement of a plan at last for the Welsh capital does not mean long-running arguments are over, particularly those concerning residential land supply.
“Without a plan, development has been ad hoc with applications judged on their own merit,” says Gareth Carter, Savills’ Cardiff development director. “Many [applicants] have used the land supply argument to get through at appeal.”
But he says the strength of opposition to the new plan – 27 councillors voted against – means there may be trouble ahead. “With such a volume of ‘no’ votes, we expect continued objections through outline and reserved matters planning stages,” says Carter.
And that may not be the only obstacle blocking the plan’s goals. “There are question marks as to whether it will be possible to deliver the numbers required by 2026, bearing in mind that 18,000 remain to be built, with 13,500 of them on greenfield sites,” says Owain Griffiths of Bilfinger GVA’s Cardiff planning team.
His concern is that developers, their advisers and planning officers need to move very quickly to get planning permissions in place for there to be any chance of the timetable being met.
Then there is the issue of who will build anyway. Many of the development sites are in suburban areas and are considered attractive in principle to many volume housebuilders. But although Redrow Homes is active on some sites identified in the plan, several other possible builders have for years been looking elsewhere, apparently because of uncertainties over Cardiff consents.
“Since the recession, several well-established UK builders have left Wales. For instance, we’re not seeing development by the likes of Bovis and Crest,” says Savills’ Carter, adding that the long-term absence of a plan dented builders’ confidence in the area.
Anything of interest
Carter also queries whether niche developers now active on several small inner-city Cardiff plots will find anything of interest in the larger-scale sites being promoted through the plan.
One final concern about the plan – and raised repeatedly in recent years – is the preparedness of the city’s infrastructure for an increased population.
Liberal Democrats have complained about too few schools and leisure amenities. Plaid Cymru says the plan’s advocates are “ruining a wonderful city” with too much greenfield development and too few healthcare facilities. Even some Labour politicians say the so-called “green wedges” introduced near the M4 will protect against development only for the duration of the plan, whereas formal green belt status would be permanent.
If the problems facing the plan sound daunting, it is because they are. But there is praise, too, especially for the zones and specific proposals for property types.
“The settlement extensions are suburban – north, east and western fringes – and likely to provide a range of housing, from terraced to executive detached and affordable. There’s certainly enough diversity, with products people will want to buy,” says Carter.
Kathryn Williams, JLL’s senior planner in Cardiff, adds: “There is high demand for three-bedroom-plus family housing and there is a policy requirement [in the plan] to provide a mix of tenure size, so this should address this need.”
So there appears to be a good product at the core of the plan. Now attention shifts to whether market forces, in the shape of buyers and PLC builders, align with Cardiff’s aspirations.
If they do, few will remember this LDP’s troubled birth. If they do not, it’s back to the drawing board when the plan is reviewed in five years’ time.
Students fuel demand
Few student markets are as attractive as Cardiff’s, given the city’s history of general housing underprovision and JLL’s estimate of 75,000 students among the 341,000 population.
Yet there has been some talk of oversupply of purpose-built accommodation and certainly approvals are coming thick and fast. In recent months, new-build schemes at Fitzalan Court in Adamsdown and at Crwys Street, plus a proposal to regenerate the derelict York Hotel and Custom House near the centre, have been agreed, together providing 600 units.
The most headline-grabbing proposal, just entering planning, is from Watkins Jones Group for a 24-storey, 463-unit tower on the site of a former alcohol treatment facility in the city centre.
However, most observers think the demand is not yet exhausted.
“Continued [student] development could result in traditional stock becoming available as family housing again,” says Owain Griffiths of Bilfinger GVA’s Cardiff planning team.
“If this replacement process takes off, the student accommodation market in the city has the potential to stay moving for several years.”
Griffiths says that although Wales does not have the permitted development rights that have done much to encourage the conversion of redundant offices to residential use in England, Cardiff council looks favourably on student schemes, especially as several residential communities have expressed concern at the high proportion of students in some buy-to-let-dominated streets.
The Plan in numbers
First approved by councillors in mid-2014 but formally signed off in January 2016, Cardiff’s local development plan includes eight designated strategic sites, seven of them for housing.
41,400
new homes by 2026
12,200
already built
18,000
still to be built
13,000
of the remainder to be built on five development sites in north-west Cardiff, north of the M4 junction 33, north-east Cardiff and east Pontprennau
65%
target for development on brownfield land
£125 per sq m
level set for community infrastructure levy
