Asked by: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when his Department plans to publish housing projections for 2012; and what those projections were for (a) Northumberland and (b) Ponteland.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Department is working on the 2012-based Household Projections and publication is planned for February 2015.
The same methodology is being used as for the 2011-based projections. This means that the ONS 2012-based population projections (already published at local authority level) provide a good initial indication of likely household growth to feed into local authorities’ assessments of housing requirements.
Household projections are a starting point for local authority assessments of housing need but local factors are also important. It is for local planning authorities to determine the impact that they have on their Local Plans, which will inevitably differ from area to area.
The specific publication date will be pre-announced in the usual way for National Statistics.
Asked by: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will place in the Library a copy of section A85 of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
A copy of the National Planning Policy Framework is available in the Library of the House and on the following website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6077/2116950.pdf
There is no 'section A85', but the section entitled Protecting Green Belt land includes paragraph 85 which sets out policy on how Green Belt boundaries should be defined.
Below is a link to recent Green Belt guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-rules-further-strengthen-green-belt-protections
Asked by: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of how many small firms and shops in (a) England and (b) the Northumberland County Council area have been affected by the recent reduction in business rates.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
We have introduced a £1 billion business rate support package for 2014-15 including:
– a 2% cap in the Retail Price Index increase in the small business rates multiplier
– a retail discount of £1,000 for around 300,000 shops, pubs and restaurants with rateable values below £50,000
– a 12 month extension of small business rate relief doubling, benefitting over half a million businesses
– a 50 per cent discount for new occupants of long-term vacant shops, and
– allowing ratepayers to pay bills over 12 instalments.
In the attached tables, Table 1 give figures for Northumberland Unitary Authority and Table 2 gives figures for England.