Issue - meetings

(1)   Cabinet noted the work being undertaken on the Local Plan.

(2)   Cabinet approved the revised timetable for the Local Plan as detailed in the Local Development Scheme appended to this report and delegates authority to the Strategic Director (Place) to make any final minor editorial and typographical revisions to the document including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s discussions and decision.

Decision

(1)          That Cabinet notes the work being undertaken on the Local Plan.

(2)          That Cabinet approves the revised timetable for the Local Plan as detailed in the Local Development Scheme appended to this report and delegates authority to the Strategic Director (Place) to make any final minor editorial and typographical revisions to the document including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s discussions and decision.

Corporate Objectives

The Council’s Local Plan helps support all 6 corporate objectives:

•          A clean, safe and enjoyable environment: e.g. contains policies relating to the design and layout of new development that promote security and safe access;

•          Building strong and vibrant communities:  e.g. contains policies and sites to support new and enhanced facilities, while seeking to protect the vitality and viability of our town centres.

•          Ensuring economic growth and prosperity:  e.g. identifies and safeguards land to deliver future economic growth across the borough. 

•          Providing good quality affordable homes: e.g. sets the Borough’s overall housing target and the proportion of new homes that must be affordable;

•          Ensuring efficient, effective and modern service delivery: e.g. provides a clear framework upon which planning decisions can be made; and

•          Meeting the challenges of the climate emergency: through an overarching environmental objective and direct policy action.

Statutory Officer Comments:

Deputy Monitoring Officer:  

Regulation 10A of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended) requires local planning authorities to review their local plans once every five years from their adoption date. In addition to this, local planning authorities are required, through the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (as amended by the Localism Act 2011), to produce a Local Development scheme (LDS).

Deputy S.151 Officer

A specific approved annual revenue budget along with approved reserve draw downs from the LDF reserve are in place to finance this programme of work. If this programme requires additional budget, requests for funds will need to be made in line with current financial regulations.

Advice

Cllr Anderson introduced the report and said, as members would be aware the Local Development Scheme was the timetable of development of the new Local plan, its potentially controversial as they have a lot of developers that want their scheme and develop first and ask questions later. Also it could be controversial as they have large sections of the communities that are strongly opposed to the proposals.

They went through the first draft of the Local plan some time ago now and they were required by legislation to meet their full allocation of housing, this had caused quite a lot of controversy with a record number of complaints and comments by the public. These comments were helpful in terms of facilitating the strategy they have to minimise development in the green belt and they are helpful in fighting our corner in terms of impact from the local area. Had they not done the consultation, arguing the consequences would have been quite serious in that it would not be possible to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8