Agenda item

Decision

RESOLVED TO RECOMMEND;

1. That the Council work with the other South West Herts Authorities (Three Rivers, Watford, Hertsmere and St. Albans Councils) and Hertfordshire County Council to prepare a Joint Strategic Plan.

2. That a Memorandum of Understanding be progressed as the framework for governing future joint working arrangements and for the final terms of this Memorandum of Understanding to be delegated to the Assistant Director – Planning, Development and Regeneration, in consultation with the Planning and Regeneration Portfolio Holder, for agreement.

3. That officers progress work on the joint plan and report this to Cabinet and Council for approval at key stages.

4. That the arrangements for the appointment of staff to be jointly managed between the five Local Authorities and to delegate to the Assistant Director – Planning, Development and Regeneration in consultation with the Corporate Director Finance and Operations and the Assistant Director Performance, Policy and Innovation to make the necessary arrangements and agreement with the other Local Authorities for recruitment, appointment, joint management and sharing of costs and liabilities.

5. That the support of Hertfordshire County Council and the Hertfordshire LEP for this process be noted.

6. That the recruitment arrangements for an urban design officer, shared with St Albans City and District Council, to provide specialist advice be commenced.

Reason for Decision

To seek support from Members to proceed with the preparation of a South West Herts Joint Strategic Plan and for governance arrangements to be put in place to enable this work to move forwards.

Corporate objectives

The Joint Strategic Plan would set the context for the Council’s own Local Plan and together both documents would help support all 5 corporate objectives:

·         Safe and clean environment: e.g. contains policies relating to the design and layout of new development that promote security and safe access;

·         Community Capacity: e.g. provide a framework for local communities to prepare area-specific guidance such as Neighbourhood Plans, Town / Village Plans etc;

·         Affordable housing: e.g. sets the Borough’s overall housing target and the proportion of new homes that must be affordable;

·         Dacorum delivers:  e.g. provides a clear framework upon which planning decisions can be made; and

Regeneration: e.g. sets the planning framework for key regeneration projects, such as Hemel Hempstead town centre and the Maylands Business Park.

Monitoring Officer/S.151 Officer comments

Monitoring Officer:  

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be the key document to agree the governance arrangements to take the plan forward but officers will need to ensure that it does not fetter the Council’s own decision making processes.   

The Statement of Common Ground will set the framework and agree key principles and priorities for the Joint Strategic Plan and therefore this should be approved by Cabinet and Council

S.151 Officer:

The Service will need to ensure that the financial risks to the Council of appointing shared staff are adequately mitigated. This will require a robust MoU that provides for the equitable sharing of potential redundancy costs and agreement on the way forward in the event that no funding is allocated by MHCLG beyond that already awarded. This process will need to involve both the Legal and Finance teams.

Advice

Cllr Sutton introduced the report, the intention is to create a Memorandum of Understanding so all five authorises in South West Herts work together to strengthen their own local plans.

It is brought before Cabinet due to the timetable, we are the last authority to consider this at Cabinet level and it has been adopted and approved by the other four Councils already.  Cllr Sutton handed over to J Doe.

J Doe added that this is a new high level plan for the five Council area.  This report is the first steps in taking joint working between the five Councils and the County Council to prepare a joint plan.  The scheme meets new requirement for Council’s within a defined Housing area to have a statement of common ground for the proper planning of that area.  We have had the Joint Leaders and Chief Executives workshop which was held at DBC on 23 January, organised by Catriona Odell who is advisor to government from the Planning Officers Society that has led to the report coming forward.  He also drew Members’ attention to the Council’s success in drawing down funds from the Planning Delivery Fund, our five Council area got its full award and the feedback we have had from government is that the very best Council’s got their award, so this will fund 2 posts moving forward to look at creating a plan and looking at strategic sites when the time is right. The report refers to engagement of East of England Local Government Association, with whom DBC Senior Officers have had discussions about some support from them for the process and we have now received a proposal for the five authority group to be considered regarding work to be done with Members.

Cllr Anderson referred to the requirement to do this, but expressed personal concern as he feels the strategic market assessment was flawed.  He is concerned about developing that kind of working any further when it has been flawed thus far, but it remains purely a concern and he can understand the requirement to do it.  He hopes DBC will retain absolute autonomy over our Housing figure; that would be his ‘red line’.

J Doe responded, to put Cllr Anderson’s mind at rest; we have been doing the strategic housing market assessments and whichever view you take about the integrity of that work, the government is now working to a standard methodology.  The Government is saying that the five Council area is what should make up our area for common ground for all planning matters, not just Housing but all planning infrastructure matters within that area. 

Cllr Birnie asked, does that leave any scope for reallocation of the actual figures within the greater area? J Doe confirmed yes, there is scope for discussion between the five Council’s as the plan progresses.  The plan will only move forward with the agreement of all Council’s and we will be doing our own individual local plan, which the Council will have full sovereignty over as well.  As it stands, none of the five Councils have allocated any land, we are all at similar points in our plan making processes.

As an example Cllr Birnie referred to The Crown Estate land along the M1, which currently belongs to St Albans, could that be renegotiated? J Doe advised that one possible outcome would be to identify strategic locations for a new development, so would have to look at a variety of factors about suitability and so on which cannot be pre-judged until discussions have taken place.

Cllr Marshall suggested that Hertfordshire County Council should be added to recommendation 1 (agreed).

The Chair commented that the development numbers are the most contentious issue. These five authorities are all struggling to achieve the numbers, and the other may feel that Dacorum has got the easier ride in terms of its land capacity. Whether you are prepared to release green belt is another argument, but the fact that we have got it to release, some would feel, gives you the capacity for numbers. He has made clear that as far as he is concerned, sovereignty of the numbers and over the plan remains with DBC, (similarly for the others). The benefits for this scheme is that the infrastructure issues, the major highway implications, health care, A41 doesn’t stop at the Watford/Three Rivers boundary; the problems of moving around South West Hertfordshire don’t stop at the boundaries, and what we hopefully will be able to achieve between the five collectively is to have a plan which addresses some of those infrastructure issues and makes our ability to get funding for some of those more realistic if we do it as a combination of five with support of the County Council.

Recommendations agreed.

Voting

None.