Question
With reference to the recent TfSE Transport Strategy Consultation. What implications does the Council see this might have for the Council and its evolving consultation starting next month on housing delivery to 2036?
Minutes:
Question
With reference to the recent TfSE Transport Strategy Consultation. What implications does the Council see this might have for the Council and its evolving consultation starting next month on housing delivery to 2036?
Answer
The consultation undertaken by Transport for the South East (TfSE) was on a draft transport strategy for the South East region. When it is finalised, the strategy will help guide future policy development and investment decisions by the Department for Transport. However we do remain the Highways Authority and also the Planning Authority.
At a local level, the transport strategy will influence our local transport planning and decisions by impacting our access to Government funding and therefore how deliverable certain transport interventions might be. Notwithstanding, the principles set out in the draft transport strategy are broadly consistent with current best practice that we work to.
The Draft Local Plan Update sets out how we propose to manage development in the period to 2036. Consultation on the Draft Local Plan Update starts shortly and I would like everyone to feed their comments in. There are no proposals in the draft transport strategy that impact on the level of development we are expected to plan for, so there are no implications for housing delivery.
There is active engagement between the planning and transport functions of the Council to ensure the impacts of development are fully considered in our decisions. The Local Transport Plan (LTP) is being reviewed alongside the Local Plan Update and will itself become the subject of consultation later this year which again I would like to encourage you to feed back to.
Supplementary Question
I assume that we all accept that the NPPF is the key Government planning document and that the NPPF policy will trump any policy that we adopt in our Local Plan. The transport strategy is really the same in the sense that the authority dealing with the transport strategy is of a higher level than us as a local body. For that reason although it has ended my reading of the document and the South East Transport consultation is that it favours transport improvements and it goes on to say linked to employment and both are linked to more houses with five year annual reviews. So to actually say that there is no impact I would actually challenge that.
I mean there is a plan to link the M3 and the M4 probably through Wokingham and my reading of this consultation is just like the NPPF; it is a higher body than our local authority. The ‘duty to co-operate’ is a similar concern. My question will be will the implication of a transport strategy and the ‘duty to co-operate’ be actually factored into the Council’s thinking in the new Local Plan as your Local Plan evolves?
Supplementary Answer
The ‘duty to co-operate’ always has to be factored into any thinking. I have taken some advice on the status of the TfSE plan from Officers already and they have told me that actually their position as Highways Authority and Planning Authority takes precedent over the TfSE plan at the moment. So I can check that for you but that is what I have been told.