Proposed Submission: Gravesham Local Plan Core Strategy

ange of facilities. Most of the housing total for the rural area consists of eithercompletions or commitments in the form of planning permissions.4.2.14 Existing housing will make up around 90% of the housing stock in2028. As a result, it is important to safeguard and make the best use of theexisting stock. Investment is needed to ensure that existing public and privatehousing meets improving standards. The Council has been undertaking arolling programme of refurbishment and repairs of its housing stock. Wherefeasible, the Council also seeks to develop some small, under-used parcels ofland that it owns, particularly to meet older persons and specialist housingneeds. However, there are areas where a more proactive solution is neededand, for example, the redevelopment of Christianfields has resulted in thereplacement of social housing in poor condition with new social and privatesector housing. The Council will consider further estate renewal but the scale,location and timing of this will depend on factors such as the fundingavailable, the condition of the units and the needs of the community.Economy and Employment4.2.15 The size and weakness of Gravesham economy is key to the rationalefor maintaining the area's supply of employment land. Research by theInstitute for Policy Research in January 2012 listed the worst affected areasfor the number of job seekers chasing every job vacancy and Gravesham wasranked at number 10 with 12 jobseekers for every vacancy. Another measureof the economy is job density which is the ratio of jobs to the population aged16-64. The latest data from the Office of National Statistics is that theBorough's job density is much lower than the South East average of 0.80.Gravesham's job density is 0.51 compared with 0.89 for Dartford, 0.61 forSwale and 0.57 for Medway. Jobs density is defined as the number of jobs inan area divided by the resident population aged 16-64 in that area. A jobdensity of 1.0 would mean that there is one job for every resident aged 16-64even though not everybody in this age-group would be in employment oractively seeking work.4.2.16 The Economy and Employment Space Study Addendum considers theemployment space requirements up to 2031 based on a number of different46