Issue - meetings

REPORT HPR2020/043

Following the introduction of the Self Build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015, it was the Council’s duty to hold a register of people seeking to acquire serviced plots of land in their area in order to build homes for their occupation.

Bromley’s register first came into effect in April 2016, reflecting the regulations at the time. Regulations introduced subsequently allowed local authorities to introduce additional criteria for entry onto the register – including a local connection test. This report sought Members’ agreement to introduce a local connection test requiring entrants onto the register to live in the Borough for a certain period of time in order to be eligible for acceptance onto the register.

Regarding existing entrants on the register, officers would write to those individuals or associations of individuals in early 2021 to note the introduction of the local connection test and invite them to provide further information to address the local connection test in order to remain on the register. This was consistent with the Regulations, which allowed for the removal of an entry from the register if the authority considered that the individual (or in the case of an association, any member of the association) was no longer eligible for entry in the register.

Councillor Fawthrop considered the proposals to be a sensible way forward and moved that the recommendations be agreed.

Councillor Allen was opposed to the introduction of a local connection test.  People moved from place to place as a matter of course so there was no point in having the test. The Council had never been inundated with requests for self-build accommodation.

Councillor Harris seconded the motion to agree the recommendations.

RESOLVED that:-

1)  the introduction of a local connection test which would be used to assess future applications for entry onto the Bromley self-build and custom housebuilding register be agreed; and

2)  the local connection test be applied retrospectively by writing to existing entrants on the register and inviting them to provide information to demonstrate that they meet the local connection test, in order to remain on the register.