Issue - meetings

Quarterly Local Plan response to government

Meeting: 29/07/2020 - Local Plan Leadership Group (Item 5)

5 Quarterly Local Plan response to government pdf icon PDF 190 KB

To receive the quarterly Local Plan response to government.

Minutes:

The Chair asked Stephen Miles to present.

 

Stephen Miles; when the council resolved to withdrew the local plan in April, they agreed to keep the government up to date with the progress on the new Local Plan for the district. The council will therefore be writing to Ministry on a quarterly basis. The paper presented is a drafted comment for government for your note and comment.

 

Cllr. Light raised a point on the wording of paragraph 9 " at cabinet on 9th July the Council agreed"..She suggested it should read "the Cabinet agreed"… The addendum was agreed by the group.

 

Cllr. Reeve asked the meaning of the acronym "MHCLG", he otherwise approved the wording.

 

Stephen Miles confirmed the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government.

 

Cllr. Bagnall suggested under the mitigating actions in the risk analysis it said "quarterly updates to MHCLG will provide the government confidence the council are working towards a new Local Plan". He suggested re-wording the statement as it would be the content of the update that would provide confidence.

 

Stephen Miles agreed this comment.

 

The Chair made some suggestions for the group to consider.

 

In the context of paragraph 8, between the 2 sentences he suggested adding the following wording or similar, "it should be noted that members did not accept the review teams recommendation that the members group should be small and held in private. This was considered to be unacceptable to both the members of the council who may wish to be involved in the process and more importantly to members of the public, to whom the council are committed to being open and transparent".

 

The group supported this insertion.

 

The Chair asked for clarification on paragraph 9, would be appropriate to replace the word process with " the Local Plan Leadership Groups recommendations to Cabinet"

 

Cllr. Bagnall remarked that the description was in line with the diagram and the proposed wording would change the context.

 

The group concluded that there was no need to change the wording in paragraph 9.

 

The Chair suggested at the end of the letter the proposed wording, "The Council wishes to emphasize that in producing the local plan it is currently totally committed to achieving the government's specified target adoption date for the Local Plan of the end of December 2023".

 

Cllr Light asked what happened if we don't meet the deadline.

 

Stephen Miles cautioned against committing to a date. Officers were currently working on the local development scheme for the Local Plan supported by a project plan to ensure the timetable being proposed is realistic.

 

He proposed giving the government an update of schedule in the next update after the council had looked at the timetable in more detail.

 

The Chair was wary if the council did not put forward a date, the following correspondence may still not give a proposed date of submission. He didn't think this was the right message to put across being non-committal.

 

Cllr. Bagnall challenged Stephen Miles  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5