Decision details

To:

(i)         Seek Cabinet Member approval to consult with developers and agents on the draft Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), ‘Waste storage and collection: guidance for developers’. The consultation is a required stage in the formal process for adopting a SPD.

(ii)        Seek Cabinet Member approval for the final stages of the SPD adoption process, as described in paragraph 41 below.

I approve that:

i)             The external consultation on the draft waste guidance SPD be authorised.

ii)            The route to adoption for the draft waste guidance SPD as set out in paragraph 41 be approved.

The decision was published on the 11 May 2016 and will come into force on 19 May 2016.

To enable the Council to:

(i)            Improve service delivery for residents in new developments.

(ii)          Increase the efficiency and safety of waste collection operations at new developments.

(iii)         Increase the recovery of Section 106 contributions where it is considered lawful to do so.

(iv)         Comply with its statutory obligations in relation to adopting SPDs by carrying out an external consultation.

The proposal to run an external consultation is a regulatory requirement, as set out in paragraph 39 above. The option to not carry out this stage has been considered but discounted as it would not allow the Council to fulfil its obligations when adopting SPDs.

As noted in paragraph 1, the consultation process is a required stage in the process of adoption of a SPD. The consultation process will provide the opportunity to engage with developers and agents and understand any concerns they might have, such as the impact of the space required for waste services on the viability of a development (see paragraph 13). While the Council will have limited scope to adapt its technical requirements, as the vehicles are of a certain size and maximum distances between waste storage and collection points are determined by Building Regulations, the consultation process will allow the Council to review developers and agents’ views. In response, the Council can either update the draft document to account for these views where possible or explain why the Council cannot change its approach, such as for operational reasons.

The consultation will directly target developers and agents because the draft waste guidance SPD provides information to those groups to inform the design process. This does not preclude input from members of the public as the consultation will be available through the consultation portal but it ensures that the groups who need to know about the document have the opportunity to comment on a draft.

Some developers have informally commented on the impact of the waste service’s technical requirements on the viability of developments. The amount of space required for turning room for vehicles or the limitations on carry distances for crews and residents, for example, impact on the amount of space available for houses. The preference among developers for (often lengthy) narrow private drives designed for private cars to use does not fit with access to waste services. Developers generally suggest that using smaller vehicles would solve the issue, a position that is supported in the Department for Transport’s Manual for Streets. Clearly the proposed solution would not be cost effective for the Council, as any smaller vehicles utilised in this way would be inefficient as they would service some roads within a development in isolation before moving to other difficult-access areas, while larger vehicles would be required for larger roads within a development. The Council should expect feedback on this issue from developers during the external consultation.

To prepare the draft waste guidance SPD for an external consultation, the document has been through an internal consultation with key departments within the Council – identified by the Spatial Planning Team – who could provide an overview of material planning considerations that may affect or may be affected by the proposals included in the draft waste guidance SPD. The internal consultation process invited comments from the following teams:

·                     Spatial Planning

·                     Development Control Central

·                     Development Control North

·                     Development Control South

·                     Sustainable Transport

·                     Urban Design

·                     Fleet Services

The draft document was updated to accommodate comments from these teams and to include example sketches to demonstrate how the technical information provided could be translated into designs.

A key point considered in the internal consultation is how the amount of space required for turning room for vehicles or the limitations on carry distances for crews and residents impact on the amount of space available for houses, as referenced in paragraph 13 above. This issue was discussed with the urban design team and they noted that they already had concerns about the types of private drives that developers prefer to use from a design perspective, but they had also noted concerns about the impact on waste collections. In further development of the waste guidance document, the technical access requirements have been maintained because they are not out-of-step with the Council’s design principles.

Following the consultation process, the draft waste guidance SPD will be reviewed and revised as appropriate to prepare it for formal adoption. The next steps in this process are set out in paragraph 41 below.