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The remaining permitted and allocated housing growth, 4,220 homes, around 9% of the total for Greater Norwich in the plan period, is on sites in village clusters. Village clusters are based on primary school catchments, which provide a proxy for social sustainability.
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Locating this level of growth in village clusters aims to promote social sustainability by supporting rural life and services. The provision of several relatively small allocation sites as required by the National Planning Policy Framework means this approach also has the benefit of supporting small-scale builders, providing choice for the market and helping to ensure the delivery of housing in popular village locations. The policy also aims to provide a range of sizes and tenures of new homes to meet needs in village clusters.
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A separate South Norfolk Village Clusters Housing Site Allocations Local Plan is being produced. This plan will include sites for a minimum of 1,200 homes in addition to the 1,392 already committed in the village clusters to be identified in South Norfolk.
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The village clusters in Broadland and the indicative amount of growth planned for each cluster are set out in appendix 5 of this strategy. The GNLP Sites Plan allocates sites to meet the strategic requirement for up to 482 more homes in addition to the 1,146 homes already committed in the village clusters in Broadland.
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The village clusters cover the remaining areas of Broadland outside the Norwich fringe, main towns and key service centres. Some smaller settlements are clustered with towns and villages higher in the settlement hierarchy, such as the villages around Aylsham. This applies where the larger settlement provides the local primary school.
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The scale of growth in any cluster in Broadland as shown appendix 5 reflects school capacity or ability to grow and the availability of other accessible services, the “social capacity” of a cluster. The identification of sites with the fewest constraints has also helped to provide the indicative view on the potential amount of growth in specific clusters.
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To reduce additional car journeys and encourage healthy and active lifestyles, new housing allocations have been preferred on sites within village clusters with good access to a primary school and a safe route to school.
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Policies 1 and 7.4 also support windfall development for affordable housing in the village clusters in both Broadland and South Norfolk, with some market housing permitted where it supports viability, including self/custom-build. The policies allow for infill and small extensions in those parts of village clusters which have a settlement boundary.
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This approach will provide for appropriate levels of growth in accessible locations in village clusters as required by policy 1.