Dorset CAN submits 26-page response to Dorset Council's draft Local Plan

Headlined "think again", Dorset CAN's detailed response was spearheaded by Prof. Michael Dower, who said:

 “The Council has made a heavy rod for all our backs by choosing - quite unnecessarily - a method which exaggerates the number of new houses and workspaces that are needed.  Before we are all dragged by this false start into a deeply damaging scale of new development, we plead with the Council to think again.”

Dorset Council’s estimate of need for over 39,000 new houses is based on a standard method of assessment used by the Government, plus a deliberate policy of over-supply adopted by the Council. But Dorset CAN says that Government rules, set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, allow local authorities to adopt an alternative method if they face ‘exceptional circumstances’.  It urges the Council to use the unique richness of the county’s landscape, wildlife, historic and coastal heritage to justify a different approach, focused truly on local need for housing and workspace.  

Read the response and press release here