Alistair Cunningham, Associate Director (Economic Development and Planning Services) will provide an update on the progression of the Wiltshire Core Strategy.
Minutes:
The Wiltshire Core Strategy, in development since 2009, is intended to set out the largest part of the Local Development Framework for Wiltshire, a series of policy documents setting out the council’s spatial vision, key objectives and the overall principles for development in the county, including location of strategic sites for new housing and employment development and the policies with which planning applications will be assessed.
Following consideration by the Environment Select Committee on 11 June 2012, the Core Strategy was approved by Council on 26 June 2012 for submission to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for formal examination. The examination in public by a Planning Inspector took place between May and July 2013, and a consultation on proposed modifications concluded in October 2013. This was followed by a procedural letter from the Inspector setting out six matters with the Core Strategy which they felt required further modifications in December 2013.
The Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Development Management, Strategic Housing, Property, Waste, Councillor Toby Sturgis, delivered an update on the continued progression of the Wiltshire Core Strategy along with the Spatial Planning Economy Manager.
It was stated that following additional modifications to address the comments of the Inspector, a further 700 comments had been received on the new consultation that was required as a result. These included comments on wind turbines, allocation of housing in specific towns, the updated housing requirements county wide, proposed bypasses in certain locations and the development of neighbourhood plans. It was intended that the Council’s response and proposals would be forwarded back to the Inspector by the end of June 2013, who could request further comment or modifications if deemed necessary.
The Committee then questioned the Cabinet Member and Officer on aspects of the Core Strategy and the process of its adoption. There were some concerns raised about the highly technical nature of some of the officer comments sent to Parish Councils for comment which made it difficult at times to understand, and that future consultations could perhaps include frequent summary sections in plain language to clarify matters. In response it was stated that every attempt was made to simplify the language used, although some use of complex technical language was unavoidable, with requests for Parishes to contact their Wiltshire Councillor or the officers for assistance if certain sections were hard to understand.
There were queries on the status of the South Wiltshire Core Strategy which was in place while the proposed Core Strategy for the whole county was un-adopted, and the need for the council to robustly defend planning decisions made on this and other extant policy documents, although it was noted that the National Planning Policy Framework was a more recent national policy document, which might be given more weight by an Inspector during an appeal.
There were additional queries and comments on neighbourhood plans permitting some limited development to meet local needs of housing and employment in villages if they established that need in their plans, and it was confirmed that the council presumed all development sites were economically viable and so could be subject to Section 106 legal agreement contributions, unless a developer could prove it was not viable to make such a contribution.
Resolved:
To note the update from the Cabinet Member.