1.1  The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) set outs key national priorities to ensure that the planning system delivers sustainable development. The golden thread running through the planning system is the presumption in favour of sustainable development. This includes three dimensions; economic, environmental and social. Local Plans should positively plan for the development needs of their area, including housing, infrastructure, employment and retail.

1.2 This Local Plan considers how best to meet identified development needs. The headline needs for this District are: 13,960 homes (a figure provided by central government), 11.6ha of employment land and 32,000m2 of retail floorspace.

1.3 Meeting development needs, particularly housing needs, within a constrained environment is clearly a defining factor for this Plan. But just as important is the need to place a high value on the varied and distinctive places and communities that make up Sevenoaks District and ensure that any new development respects these differences. We want to create healthy communities, not just houses, and these places need to be supported by services and infrastructure, so people and future generations will choose to live and work in these sustainable locations.

1.4 We are working closely with our town and parish councils that are preparing Neighbourhood Plans for their areas. Where site allocations are proposed in areas that are developing a Neighbourhood Plan, the Local Plan will set the high-level parameters in terms of land-use and the amount of development and the Neighbourhood Plan can provide more detail in terms of design and local distinctiveness.

The following table sets out our proposals and priorities for the four towns within Sevenoaks District.

 * These are greenfield Green Belt sites which claim to have exceptional circumstances. These sites are currently being tested and are included in this consultation for comment, but this does not guarantee their inclusion in the final Draft Local Plan.

1.5 In respect of the identified housing need, the government has recently introduced a standardised methodology for assessing this, which will, when confirmed, replace the previous requirement for the District Council to assess its own needs. The Local Plan must take account of the new methodology, which is based on the latest published household projections produced by the ONS that are then adjusted to take account of affordability issues. For Sevenoaks, this means an increase from 12,400 homes to 13,960 homes over the plan period from 2015 to 2035.

1.6 To put these figures in context, this would need 698 homes to be built every year, tripling the approximately 250 homes which have been delivered each year over the past 10 years, and quadrupling our existing Core Strategy target of 165 homes per year. It is therefore very clear that our ability to meet our housing need within our District will be a key challenge for this Plan. National planning policy sets out that we should aim to meet the 'Local Housing Need' figure provided by central government unless the adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. This is a highly constrained District with 93% Green Belt and 60% AONB and therefore it is very likely that these constraints will dictate whether we are able to meet our housing need in full.

1.7 Our existing Core Strategy focuses development within the existing settlements in the District, in the 7% of land which does not fall within the Green Belt. This has been our starting point for this new Local Plan. Although the 'Local Housing Need' figure provided by central government represents a huge challenge for this constrained District, we have interrogated all potential sources of housing supply (as set out in the table below) before considering any development in the Green Belt. Essentially we have looked at the potential of land within existing settlements to understand the capacity of non-Green Belt land. The Green Belt boundaries are drawn tightly around the 24 settlements in the District that have defined green belt boundaries, which naturally restricts settlement capacity. We have focused on 'maximising the supply' in existing settlements, including through increased density and urban regeneration.

1.8 It is apparent that we will not be able to meet the 'Local Housing Need' figure provided by central government purely by focusing within our existing settlements. Therefore, we have been consulting with our neighbouring authorities, to understand whether they can help to meet some of our need, through a process known as the Duty to Co-operate. We have fully considered capacity within the West Kent housing market area (HMA) and adjacent housing market areas. Officers and members of Sevenoaks District Council, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council have been meeting to establish a robust process of co-operation, supported by the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) and have produced a Statement of Common Ground. Discussions have also been held with Dartford Borough Council and we have a Memorandum of Understanding with Maidstone, to explore Duty to Cooperate issues which might not be able to be met within the HMA. To date, none of these discussions or processes have led to any authorities being able to assist Sevenoaks with unmet need. Clearly there needs to be a balance between how much can be achieved within the highly constrained Sevenoaks District and what might be achieved elsewhere, and discussions will continue as the Local Plan progresses to examination. The next step has been to consider the potential of land that falls within the Green Belt. Sevenoaks District is heavily constrained by Green Belt and environmental constraints. We are committed to protecting the Green Belt which is highly valued by our local communities and its importance continues to be recognised by Government through the NPPF. Green Belt boundaries can only be amended in 'exceptional circumstances'. Meeting housing and other needs is an important target, but the overriding requirement is to ensure that development is sustainable. A 2017 study assessing the District's Green Belt finds that all areas continue to perform against at least one of the five purposes of Green Belt making its continued designation appropriate unless exceptional circumstances are clearly identified.

1.9 We have first looked at Previously Developed Land (PDL, as defined within the NPPF) in the Green Belt, provided it is situated in a sustainable location, close to services and facilities. We have also taken a broader, more inclusive definition of PDL, or 'locally defined brownfield land' in order to maximise the potential of land that has been subject to some form of development. This includes consideration of for example agricultural buildings, plant nurseries or minerals workings, which are excluded from the national definition of PDL. However, these sites still need to be situated in a sustainable location to form part of this strategy.

1.10 In terms of green field Green Belt land, we have been consistently clear that we will only consider use of this land in 'exceptional circumstances', where social and community infrastructure is being proposed in addition to housing, which could help address evidenced infrastructure deficiencies in the area. Exceptional circumstances are not defined in national policy, but we consider that they need to be considered both at the strategic district-wide level and at the site specific level. Strategically, the District is unable to meet its housing need in the 7% of land in the District that is not classified as Green Belt. The scale of the need, including the need for affordable homes, is such that we are considering sites where they suggest that they have the Exceptional Circumstances required to propose Green Belt amendment, which we have defined locally as providing social and community infrastructure which meets an evidenced need.

1.11 In terms of spatial options to accommodate our need, we have considered a number of different options, including five approaches that we considered as part of the Issues and Options consultation in 2017.

1.12 Our preferred option, which received 92% support in our Issues and Options consultation (2017) is summarised below:

• Focus growth in existing settlements, including at higher density
• Redevelopment of previously developed / locally-defined 'brownfield' land in sustainable locations
• Development of greenfield Green Belt land only in 'exceptional circumstances', where social and community infrastructure is being proposed in addition to housing, which could help address evidenced infrastructure deficiencies in the area

1.13 In terms of the broad spatial distribution for potential Green Belt amendment, we have looked at our settlement hierarchy, which ranks our settlements in terms of sustainability, with reference to their services and facilities. There are four towns in Sevenoaks District - Sevenoaks, Swanley, Edenbridge and Westerham, which form the top tiers of our settlement hierarchy. We have looked broadly at these four settlements in terms of compass-point directions of growth, and the relative constraints and opportunities presented by each of these settlements.

1.14 Based on this consideration of 'directions of growth' and land availability, through sites that have been submitted through the 'call for sites' and that are therefore available for development, a number of potential exceptional circumstances cases are under consideration, which all propose social and community infrastructure in addition to housing. We are consulting on all of these sites, in order to receive stakeholder comments on the proposals and to give you a further chance to give us your opinions on these proposals, which are now more clearly defined than at the Issues and Options consultation stage last year. It should be noted that some sites in the same settlement (Edenbridge) are proposing similar infrastructure; these are all included as options, but will not all be included in the final draft of the plan, as clearly multiple identical facilities are not required. To re-iterate, the inclusion of these sites in this consultation does not guarantee their inclusion in the final draft Local Plan. We are still assessing whether the infrastructure proposed meets a genuine evidenced need and whether the exceptional circumstances proposed are sufficient to warrant a Green Belt amendment, and this work will be informed by the stakeholder and community consultation. We are also considering how land removed from the Green Belt can be offset through compensatory improvements, and this will form part of our consideration of the potential 'Exceptional Circumstances' sites.

1.15 In relation to the potential 'Exceptional Circumstances' site in Swanley (Land between Beechenlea Lane and Highlands Hill) it should be noted that in February 2017, Cabinet determined that: 'c) some elements of the Master Vision be addressed further within a Local Plan 'Issues and Options' consultation to be undertaken during 2017 with the exception of unsupported aspects, namely......the proposals to build 3000 houses, or any large development, on the pieces of strongly performing Green Belt and Grade 2 agricultural land at the back of Archer Way which separates the communities of Hextable, Swanley Village and Swanley'. At that time we were gathering our evidence base together (the report to Cabinet was on the Swanley and Hextable master-vision) and we had not yet settled on a District-wide development strategy - we now have i.e. develop at higher density in existing settlements, on brownfield land, and on greenfield Green Belt land only in Exceptional Circumstances where there are social and community benefits that meet an evidenced need.

1.16 Now we are considering an actual submission from the landowner to the call for sites (as opposed to a 3,000 unit garden village concept proposed by our master-planners). We are therefore obliged to consider the submission in line with our development strategy as it potentially fits in the latter category as it is greenfield Green Belt proposing social and community infrastructure that could potentially meet an evidenced need. Therefore, in order to be consistent with all the other sites we have assessed, this submission should be subject to public consultation to seek public and stakeholder comments.

1.17 Further details of the potential exceptional circumstances cases can be viewed in the site allocation appendix (Appendix 1) and additional supporting information that has been submitted by the promoter is available here. A summary of the infrastructure proposed on these sites, as defined by the site promoters, is outlined over:

The following chart outlines the proposed housing supply options:

1.18 In summary this achieves approximately:

• 2,900 units from our 'baseline' (completions and permissions)
• 2,300 units from 'maximising supply' in existing settlements
• 1,300 units from previously developed or 'Brownfield' land
• 100 units from sites with heritage constraints (not yet fully assessed)
• Sub-Total 6,600 from the above elements
• 6,800 units from 'Exceptional Circumstances' sites (to be tested)

Approximately 6,600 - 13,400 units in Total (see below for explanation of range)

1.19 The above range reflects the fact that the potential Exceptional Circumstances sites (greenfield sites with proposed infrastructure and community benefits) are yet to be tested and therefore it is currently unknown which sites will be taken forward into the final draft of the Local Plan. 6,600 represents the number of units that would be delivered if none of the 'exceptional circumstances' sites are included, whereas 13,400 represents the number of units that would be delivered if all of the 'exceptional circumstances' sites are included in the draft Local Plan.

1.20 Further details of the sites that make up this housing supply are set out in the Site Allocations Appendix, including design guidance and areas where more information is required in order to confirm inclusion of the site in the Draft Plan.