Housing and Employment Evidence, Coventry and Warwickshire

Client: Six of the Coventry and Warwickshire authorities
Location: West Midlands
Discipline(s):

GL Hearn has worked with all six of the Coventry and Warwickshire authorities to provide a robust assessment of the future housing and employment land needs for the sub-region. The assessment supported the preparation of Local Plans five which had GL Hearn representation on these matters at the Local Plan Examinations in Public.

The Issue
GL Hearn was commissioned to undertake an assessment of future housing and employment lands for each of the authorities in the study area. The area had particular complexities regarding cross-boundary issues for both housing and employment land supply.

The GL Hearn Solution
GL Hearn developed strong working relationships with all of the authorities to develop an assessment which was cognisant of the cross-boundary relationships required to meet the sub-regions housing and employment land needs.

For housing needs GL Hearn prepared a sub-regional Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) to consider needs at the sub-regional and local authority level. For employment land GL Hearn undertook a range of employment land studies which identified each local authority’s needs whilst taking account of sites serving the wider needs of Coventry as well as the sub-regional demand for warehouse/logistics sites. This work informed a Memorandum of Understandings agreed by all authorities.

In addition we provided inputs to the assessment of the Coventry and Warwickshire Gateway planning application including expert witness advice at the SoS call-In Inquiry.

More recently we have been working with Warwick Council’s Chief Executive preparing a Statement of Need and Economic Impact relating to a proposed hotel/ conference facility at St Mary’s Lands.