Is Tatham a Sustainable Settlement?

Planning applications for new homes or barn conversions in Tatham are invariably blocked by Lancaster City Council (LCC) on the grounds that the proposed development is “unsustainable”.

In many cases this happens despite Parish Council support for a proposal, and we have repeatedly asked LCC for an explanation of what it means by “unsustainable”; replies have generally been opaque rather than clear, but at the heart of the matter is a City Council concept of “Sustainable Settlements”, which it defines, and then applies rigidly to guide where new housing is to be allowed. Its list of sustainable settlements is updated periodically, most recently in 2017.

So: what does “sustainable settlement” mean to LCC? This question was answered in its 2017 Sustainable Settlements Review, on page 43. Tatham fell at the first hurdle (para 6.98) because its population density is lower than 0.2 people per hectare*.

The City Council is currently engaged in a new review, and as part of its information-gathering invited the Parish Council to respond to a questionnaire.  The PC felt that the questionnaire had not been designed in a way which would allow it to present a fair picture of the sustainability of life in our unique parish, and decided instead to submit a statement, which can be viewed below. The PC is particularly concerned about the apparently incompatible aims of national planning policy: “to promote sustainable development in rural areas, housing should be located where it will enhance or maintain the vitality of rural communities”; and LCC’s policy, which effectively prevents the new housing in Tatham that is needed to “enhance or maintain the vitality” of its community.

In response to this, the July 2023 PC meeting at the Old School was attended by Paul Hatch, Lancaster’s Principal Planning Officer (Planning Policy). He restated the thinking behind the City Council’s sustainable settlements classification and review, and answered a number of questions from parish councillors and from members of the public. He also submitted a document setting out the planning authority’s position regarding development in Tatham, with a summary in the last section.

In its final paragraph, the document has a link to information about the Community Right to Build. Under this scheme, any community which wishes to benefit from development is able to seek the Right to Build as long as they can demonstrate that they have met various minimum criteria to ensure development is sustainable and have overwhelming support for the development through a referendum. Those conditions may look daunting, but a regional organisation – Community Led Housing Hub Cumbria & Lancaster – has been set up to help such projects from start to finish.

* Actual figure is 0.1 based on 2001 census. If the moorland parts of the parish (1371 out of 3805 hectares) are excluded, the population density is 0.16.