Council strengthens planning team with housing need appointment

A district council has recruited to fill a new senior planning post to help it strike the balance between housing provision and the protection of green-belt land.

Epping Forest District Council stretches from the edge of suburban London to rural Essex and is currently updating its local plan.

Planning policy manager Ken Bean, who joined from Enfield Council, told Planning: “There are pressures on housing needs that have to be accommodated, yet they must be reconciled with protecting the green belt.”

Bean said Epping Forest was in the midst of producing evidence for a strategic housing market assessment (SHMA) with three neighbouring authorities.

“That will work out the need for the area and it will be a case of taking that forward. Being so close to London means we are also taking pressures from the capital.

“Unlike London, which has the Greater London Authority (GLA), there is a lack of a strategic planning body, which can make it harder on issues such as the duty to co-operate.”

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