Wycombe District Council is one of many local authorities which must plan for a significant increase in the demand for new housing, due to forecast demographic changes in the population over the next 15 years. Provision must be made to find suitable sites for 2,400 new dwellings over the period 2001 - 2011. Much of the countryside immediately surrounding High Wycombe is Metropolitan Green Belt land and the majority is within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The allocation of land for new housing is a sensitive, difficult and emotive issue. Wycombe District Council is committed to encouraging sustainable development. The Planning Department is working in close collaboration with Buckinghamshire County Council and Halcrow Fox to comprehensively and objectively evaluate potential housing site locations using a Goals Achievement Matrix (GAM) assessment framework. The GAM methodology is a multi-criteria approach which has been used, in Wycombe District, to examine the performance of each site in the context of transport, development, economic, community and environmental issues. The paper examines the structure of the GAM created to assess transport related issues arising from the individual `Greenfield' and `Brownfield' sites.
Samenvatting