FI16701

Request

  1. Can you tell me how many permanent dwellings were completed in your local authority area in a) 2024/25, b) 2023/24 and c) 2022/23?
  2. Can you tell me how many permanent dwellings completed in your local authority area were deemed accessible in a) 2024/25, b) 2023/24 and c) 2022/23?
  3. Can you tell me how many permanent dwellings completed in your local authority area met the M4 (1) accessibility standard in a) 2024/25, b) 2023/24 and c) 2022/23?
  4. Can you tell me how many permanent dwellings completed in your local authority area met the M4 (2) accessibility standard in a) 2024/25, b) 2023/24 and c) 2022/23?
  5. Can you tell me how many permanent dwellings completed in your local authority area met the M4 (3) accessibility standard in a) 2024/25, b) 2023/24 and c) 2022/23?
  6. Can you tell me what proportion of new build dwellings were proposed to be accessible in your local plan covering a) 2026/27, b) 2025/26, c) 2024/25, d) 2023/24 and e) 2022/23?
  7. Can you tell me what proportion of new build dwellings were proposed to be built to M4 (1) accessibility standard in your local plan covering a) 2026/27, b) 2025/26, c) 2024/25, d) 2023/24 and e) 2022/23?
  8. Can you tell me what proportion of new build dwellings were proposed to be built to M4 (2) accessibility standard in your local plan covering a) 2026/27, b) 2025/26, c) 2024/25, d) 2023/24 and e) 2022/23?
  9. Can you tell me what proportion of new build dwellings were proposed to be built to M4 (3) accessibility standard in your local plan covering a) 2026/27, b) 2025/26, c) 2024/25, d) 2023/24 and e) 2022/23?

Response

1. Information on dwelling completions for each year can be found in our Authority Monitoring Reports (AMR) which can be found on the Council’s website at https://www.dover.gov.uk/Planning/Planning-Policy/Monitoring-and-Land-Supply/Monitoring-and-Land-Supply.aspx.

2-4. The Council may hold some information in respect of questions 2 to 4 as part of the Building Control database however to retrieve this information would mean manually looking at each completed application for dwellings in those specific time periods for applications we have looked at and approved inspectors and then see if this was applicable and complied with. As this information is not readily available and from our preliminary assessment, we have estimated that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for Local Government it is set at ?450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2? working days in determining whether the information is held, locating, retrieving and extracting the data. I regret therefore, that on this occasion I must refuse this part of your request in accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.

5-9. In respect of questions 5 to 9, Policy PM2 of the adopted Local Plan to 2040 requires all new dwellings to be built to Building Regulation Part M4(2) – Accessible and Adaptable dwellings - and on schemes of 20 dwellings or more homes, 5% of those are provided as Building Regulations M4(3) - wheelchair user dwellings. This will be provided in the affordable element of the scheme (rather than the market homes) to accord with national guidance. This requirement is being applied from adoption date on 16 October 2024 to all new applications, but very few of these will homes be 'complete' at this time. Any data that we have collected for proposed accessible dwellings is recorded from 2024/25 in the AMR dover.gov.uk/Planning/Planning-Policy/Monitoring-and-Land-Supply/AMR/AMR-24-25/AMR-24-25-Whole-Document28-01-26BF.pdf, but we do not hold data for earlier years as it was not a planning requirement prior to the Local Plan adoption.