Bournemouth Borough Council:Pure Town Planning have just successfully persuaded
Bournemouth Borough Council and the District Valuer that a scheme for 4 dwellings in Southbourne should not be liable for any affordable housing contribution whatsoever.

Pure Town Planning were called in to assist when the architect, having submitted the planning application, was faced with a request from the Council for a £90,000 contribution towards affordable housing! Clearly the applicant was knocked off his feet when he heard this and rightly decided to challenge the Council.

We put together a comprehensive viability report which convinced the District Valuer that it would not be financially viable for the developer to pay £90,000, as (and this is the twist) they would simply build out the already approved scheme on the site – there was an existing consent on this site for a pair of semi-detached properties and a detached property – 3 units in total, which interestingly only had an affordable housing contribution of £10,000.

We successfully demonstrated that the “Existing Use Value” (as a development site with the existing planning permission in place) and the build cost of the proposal were major contributory factors in the site’s residual valuation. Full financial evidence was provided to justify this and convince the District Valuer that the site was unable to provide an affordable housing contribution in this instance.

Pure Town Planning were then also asked to jump in as planning agents and negotiate with the Council on the design of the scheme through to an approval – after all it would have been pointless winning the affordable housing argument if the planning application to which it related was not approved!

If you have a current application or even a recent planning approval in Bournemouth which the Council have similarly requested an extortionate affordable housing contribution on, then why not challenge it? Give us a call today and see if we can completely remove your affordable housing contribution  for you, or at least substantially reduce it!