(a)

the information contained within the Annual Housing Statement covered a wide range of indicators, such as the number of new dwellings completed, with planning permission but not started and under construction as at 1 April (each year);

(b)

the most important element of the Statement related to whether the Local Planning Authority could demonstrate a five year land supply of sites for housing development;

(c)

in July 2019, the Joint Local Plan Partnership Board approved the publication of the first Joint Local Plan Housing Position Statement which was produced following the adoption of the Plymouth and South Wet Devon Joint Local Plan; (the monitoring of housing delivery and in particular the calculation of the five year land supply was undertaken for the whole plan which included parts of South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council);

(d)

the key headlines relating to the Housing Position Statement included -

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across the plan area a total of 1388 dwellings (net) were delivered between April 2018 and 2019; of this total 850 had been delivered in Plymouth;

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across the plan area there were 2204 dwellings under construction at April 2019 and 13,250 dwellings with planning consent;

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there had also been a high level of new dwellings started during April 2018 and 2019; across the plan 1845 homes (932 of which were in Plymouth); there was a forecast of 1925 (1156 being constructed in Plymouth) dwellings being completed in 2019 – 2020;

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a total of 8797 dwellings had been identified across the plan in the five  year land supply of which 4117 would be located in Plymouth;

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1663 affordable dwellings (net) had been delivered in the first five years of the plan, at an average of 333 dwellings per year (1036 of which were located in Plymouth) this delivery was slightly ahead of the targets set out within the Joint Local Plan.

(e)

how confident was the Council in continuing to be able to identify land for housing development;

(f)

concerns that land identified within the Plymouth plan area was not being allocated to Plymouth based housing associations such as Plymouth Community Homes;

(g)

what would be the impact on the statistics within the Annual Statement, if property developed for general housing use was re-purposed for student accommodation and whether there were any checks regarding this matter;

(h)

whether there was a requirement for the Annual Housing Statement to separately identify student accommodation;

(i)

whether there would be an adverse effect on the surrounding community relating to sites where planning permission had been allowed to lapse and the site left derelict.