Housing numbers should be redirected from Diss, Harleston and the South Norfolk rural cluster villages to a new settlement at Hethel. The policy should include the identification of a new settlement at Hethel. This approach would clearly support the ambition to provide most new homes in and around Norwich and within the Tech corridor and would provide land and homes to expand and support the opportunity for hi-tech engineering jobs within the Tech corridor.

Our previously submitted comments in relation to the proposed growth strategy still stand. Too great an emphasis is placed upon dispersal of growth to as yet unidentified sites in rural cluster villages in South Norfolk and to towns like Diss and Harleston, outside of the Cambridge-Norwich Tech Corridor and the Strategic Growth Area.

Although it is recognised that these more rural locations should accommodate some additional housing growth, this should not take precedence over redirecting the policies in the new plan beyond those in the JCS to ensure that there is a real new focus and commitment on meeting the stated vision for the Strategic Growth Area and Cambridge -Norwich Tech corridor.

Housing numbers should be redirected from Diss, Harleston and the South Norfolk rural cluster villages to a new settlement at Hethel. This approach would clearly support the ambition to provide most new homes in and around Norwich and within the Tech corridor and would provide land and homes to expand and support the opportunity for hi-tech engineering jobs within the Tech corridor. Such an approach would help provide a ‘Sustainable Growth Strategy’ and a development hierarchy that focusses growth on the most sustainable locations within the Strategic Growth Area. The current over emphasis on potential rural allocations in the bottom tier of the settlement hierarchy and overly large allocations in Diss and Harleston makes the strategy unsound in its current form.

Our previously submitted Vision and Delivery Document has provided detailed information regarding the availability and deliverability of the Stanfield Garden Village site together with the opportunities and benefits that would arise through its allocation.