Agenda item

To consider questions (if any) by members of the public of which the appropriate notice has been given to the Assistant Director (Corporate and Contracted Services).

Questions from Graham Bright (Grove Fields Residents Association) to Councillor G Sutton:

Q1: "There was a lockdown when DBC voted to commence the public consultation and there is currently a lockdown. This alone is a good enough reason to postpone or at the very least extend the end date of the public consultation until a date when the lockdown is lifted and the public can properly engage with the consultation. There is a complete lack of awareness in Tring that there is an ongoing public consultation. I have not received anything through my door about how to engage with the consultation. There are many people in Tring who are now shielding, and engaging with the consultation does not fit within the government's definition of 'essential travel', therefore, the only way to engage is online. Many members of the public in Tring do not have access to the devices, Wi-Fi or the technical know-how to engage online. The current date of the 7th February, does not allow enough time for a fair or equitable access to the public consultation and DBC is opening itself up to judicial challenge.

In addition, on the 16 December the government published its response to the local housing need proposals on the consultation on changes to the current planning system. This sets out important changes to the standard method which has been amended so that the 20 most populated cities and urban centres in England (none of which are in Dacorum) see their need uplifted by 35%.

Government also said "More broadly, we heard suggestions in the consultation that in some places the numbers produced by the standard method pose a risk to protected landscapes and Green Belt. We (Government) should be clear that meeting housing need is never a reason to cause unacceptable harm to such places." and they went on to say "Within the current planning system the standard method does not present a ‘target’ in plan-making, but instead provides a starting point for determining the level of need for the area, and it is only after consideration of this, alongside what constraints areas face, such as the Green Belt, and the land that is actually available for development, that the decision on how many homes should be planned for is made. It does not override other planning policies, including the protections set out in Paragraph 11b of the NPPF or our strong protections for the Green Belt.

Therefore, there is no logic why DBC should slavishly pursue a plan to build on so much green belt when they should  develop a plan based upon 'need' rather than using the standard method figure as a target that must be achieved at all costs.

Therefore my question is, can DBC either:

1. Extend the end date of the public consultation until 10 weeks after the current lockdown, or
2. Cancel the public consultation and rewrite the plan in line with the latest central Government guidance?"

Response:The Council took the decision to extend the consultation to extend the current consultation from the statutory 6 weeks to 10 weeks in recognition that residents may need more time to review and respond to the consultation. The Council has also put in place an extensive publicity campaign to notify residents of the Local Plan consultation. This included:

1.      an article in the Dacorum Digest (63,000 copies)

2.      the digital digest (11,400 subscribers)

3.      newspaper articles – public notice in the Hemel Hempstead Gazette and Online Hemel Today

4.      a mail-out to those on the Council’s Local Plan database

5.      a permanent virtual exhibition where residents could view documents and leave a message for officers

6.      a local plan video explaining the consultation

7.      making arrangements for residents to access the documents (by appointment) at the Forum and to loan documents from Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring library

8.      Printed copies of the documents to all town and parish councils.

As at 12^th January 2021 there have been a total of 14,185 hits on the Local Plan website since the start of the consultation. There have been 1,862 individual users access the virtual exhibition viewing a total of 20,295 items.

Officers have only received a very small number of enquiries from residents asking for further assistance in accessing the documents. At the time of writing no requests have been made for paper copies of the documents to be provided and no resident has complained that they have been unable to view a document.

In view of the announcement of national lockdown recently, we will now extend the consultation to close on 28 February 2021 to provide an additional three weeks to the already extended period.

Turning to your specific questions:

1. It is not clear when the current ‘lockdown’ restrictions will ease and what this will be replaced but. However, it is expected that restrictions will remain in place for some time. As such, the Council does not consider it practical to extend the consultation by an indeterminate period of time. The Council has previously extended this consultation to ten weeks which is significantly more than the statutory 6 weeks required by the Local Plan regulations. However, we do recognise that the recently imposed Lockdown places further restrictions on movement and so the Council proposes to extend the consultation to midnight on 28 February 2021. This would be more than double the required consultation period.
2. The current consultation is under regulation 18 of the Local Plan Regulations. This is still a relatively early part of the plan making process. Moreover, this is the first opportunity in 3 years that residents have had an opportunity to have their say on the Local Plan, particularly on the proposed level of growth and sites; all of which will be very useful feedback for Officers. Once the consultation closes we will carefully consider the points made, together with any changes to Government Guidance, before considering what changes to make to the Plan.

Q2: “Whilst it is good that a large amount of communication has gone out and only a small number of people have contacted DBC to ask about how to access the information, my concern is that there is still a lack of awareness of the public consultation in Tring. Would DBC consider implementing a mailshot to all households in Tring to raise awareness?”

Response: From the number of hits the website has had so far it appears we’re reaching quite a reasonable proportion. We’re discussing this with our communications team at the moment and we will be pushing out more information regarding the Local Plan in the coming weeks. I will make a point of mentioning Tring residents in case there are specific issues in that area.

Questions from Graham Bright (Grove Fields Residents Association) to Councillor G Sutton:

Q1: "There was a lockdown when DBC voted to commence the public consultation and there is currently a lockdown. This alone is a good enough reason to postpone or at the very least extend the end date of the public consultation until a date when the lockdown is lifted and the public can properly engage with the consultation. There is a complete lack of awareness in Tring that there is an ongoing public consultation. I have not received anything through my door about how to engage with the consultation. There are many people in Tring who are now shielding, and engaging with the consultation does not fit within the government's definition of 'essential travel', therefore, the only way to engage is online. Many members of the public in Tring do not have access to the devices, Wi-Fi or the technical know-how to engage online. The current date of the 7th February, does not allow enough time for a fair or equitable access to the public consultation and DBC is opening itself up to judicial challenge.

In addition, on the 16 December the government published its response to the local housing need proposals on the consultation on changes to the current planning system. This sets out important changes to the standard method which has been amended so that the 20 most populated cities and urban centres in England (none of which are in Dacorum) see their need uplifted by 35%.

Government also said "More broadly, we heard suggestions in the consultation that in some places the numbers produced by the standard method pose a risk to protected landscapes and Green Belt. We (Government) should be clear that meeting housing need is never a reason to cause unacceptable harm to such places." and they went on to say "Within the current planning system the standard method does not present a ‘target’ in plan-making, but instead provides a starting point for determining the level of need for the area, and it is only after consideration of this, alongside what constraints areas face, such as the Green Belt, and the land that is actually available for development, that the decision on how many homes should be planned for is made. It does not override other planning policies, including the protections set out in Paragraph 11b of the NPPF or our strong protections for the Green Belt.

Therefore, there is no logic why DBC should slavishly pursue a plan to build on so much green belt when they should  develop a plan based upon 'need' rather than using the standard method figure as a target that must be achieved at all costs.

Therefore my question is, can DBC either:

1. Extend the end date of the public consultation until 10 weeks after the current lockdown, or
2. Cancel the public consultation and rewrite the plan in line with the latest central Government guidance?"

Response:The Council took the decision to extend the consultation to extend the current consultation from the statutory 6 weeks to 10 weeks in recognition that residents may need more time to review and respond to the consultation. The Council has also put in place an extensive publicity campaign to notify residents of the Local Plan consultation. This included:

1.      an article in the Dacorum Digest (63,000 copies)

2.      the digital digest (11,400 subscribers)

3.      newspaper articles – public notice in the Hemel Hempstead Gazette and Online Hemel Today

4.      a mail-out to those on the Council’s Local Plan database

5.      a permanent virtual exhibition where residents could view documents and leave a message for officers

6.      a local plan video explaining the consultation

7.      making arrangements for residents to access the documents (by appointment) at the Forum and to loan documents from Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring library

8.      Printed copies of the documents to all town and parish councils.

As at 12^th January 2021 there have been a total of 14,185 hits on the Local Plan website since the start of the consultation. There have been 1,862 individual users access the virtual exhibition viewing a total of 20,295 items.

Officers have only received a very small number of enquiries from residents asking for further assistance in accessing the documents. At the time of writing no requests have been made for paper copies of the documents to be provided and no resident has complained that they have been unable to view a document.

In view of the announcement of national lockdown recently, we will now extend the consultation to close on 28 February 2021 to provide an additional three weeks to the already extended period.

Turning to your specific questions:

1. It is not clear when the current ‘lockdown’ restrictions will ease and what this will be replaced but. However, it is expected that restrictions will remain in place for some time. As such, the Council does not consider it practical to extend the consultation by an indeterminate period of time. The Council has previously extended this consultation to ten weeks which is significantly more than the statutory 6 weeks required by the Local Plan regulations. However, we do recognise that the recently imposed Lockdown places further restrictions on movement and so the Council proposes to extend the consultation to midnight on 28 February 2021. This would be more than double the required consultation period.
2. The current consultation is under regulation 18 of the Local Plan Regulations. This is still a relatively early part of the plan making process. Moreover, this is the first opportunity in 3 years that residents have had an opportunity to have their say on the Local Plan, particularly on the proposed level of growth and sites; all of which will be very useful feedback for Officers. Once the consultation closes we will carefully consider the points made, together with any changes to Government Guidance, before considering what changes to make to the Plan.

Q2: “Whilst it is good that a large amount of communication has gone out and only a small number of people have contacted DBC to ask about how to access the information, my concern is that there is still a lack of awareness of the public consultation in Tring. Would DBC consider implementing a mailshot to all households in Tring to raise awareness?”

Response: From the number of hits the website has had so far it appears we’re reaching quite a reasonable proportion. We’re discussing this with our communications team at the moment and we will be pushing out more information regarding the Local Plan in the coming weeks. I will make a point of mentioning Tring residents in case there are specific issues in that area.