And yet, when discussing Planning Applications for some of these sites with officers, I was advised that these site capacity numbers should be seen as ‘indicative’ or even, the ‘minimum’ number.
I can find no statement in the Revised Growth Strategy to support this. I understand that the LPU is a working document, with numbers therein used as part of a broad calculation.
But that is not what the public understand. If a site is included in a consultation with a site capacity indicated against it, then the public will base their responses accordingly. To tell them later that the number means something quite different is blatantly misleading.
Could I ask the Executive Member for Planning to work with officers to ensure that when the next version of the LPU is published, the meaning of statements about site capacity is made much clearer.
Minutes:
The last version of the Local Plan Update, the ‘Revised Growth Strategy’ was published for consultation in November 2021. The plan listed sites suitable for development and gave a capacity for each site. For example: “Location X has been identified for 10 dwellings”. That is a clear and unambiguous statement and yet, when discussing Planning Applications for some of these sites with officers, I was advised that these site capacity numbers should be seen as ‘indicative’ or even, the ‘minimum’ number.
I can find no statement in the Revised Growth Strategy to support this.
I understand that the LPU is a working document, with numbers therein used as part of a broad calculation.
But that is not what the public understand. If a site is included in a consultation with a site capacity indicated against it, then the public will base their responses accordingly. To tell them later that the number means something quite different is blatantly misleading.
Could I ask the Executive Member for Planning to work with officers to ensure that when the next version of the LPU is published, the meaning of statements about site capacity is made much clearer.
Answer:
I agree that policy should provide as clear an indication as possible as to how the Council proposes a site to be developed and I will work with officers to this end. However there are limits on what can be achieved.
To explain, policy wording cannot be written as an absolute with experience being that it must be drafted as an approximate number of homes, or a figure in the order of a number of homes. Such wording is ‘tried and tested’, and consistently supported by Planning Inspectors. Plans that do not use this form of wording will likely be modified by Inspectors at examination in any event.
We have also to recognise that a landowner has the right to submit a planning application for any form of development. This will be assessed against our policies as a whole. When an application is put forward for a greater number of homes than expected by policy, this will be considered, however the primary consideration will be whether the proposal achieved quality design and placemaking. Proposals which do not achieve this will be refused.
Supplementary Question:
Thank you, Lindsay, for your answer which is very informative, but I think it speaks to perhaps a wider issue of how the Council communicates in general about planning issues to the public. There is clearly an enormous gap between the precision and the professionalism required by the Council in addressing planning issues, and the understanding of the general public. This gap in understanding works to the detriment of us all, and I think the next question from Councillor Margetts is along a similar sort of line. Could I therefore ask Lindsay that he facilitate a meeting when convenient between, he, myself and the Director for Place and Growth to discuss in broad terms how we might possibly work together to improve some of our communications on this?
Supplementary Answer:
Yes, David, I would be quite happy to do that.