Issue - meetings

To consider the Issues and Options report.

The Local Plan and New Communities Manager explained the process and invited comments.

In response to a question from Councillor Criscione, the Local Plan and New Communities Manager explained the Community Stakeholders Forum and said the public were invited to attend and make comments after each meeting.   He stressed the importance of public engagement at this point as no decisions had been made and so comments would directly influence the Local Plan first draft.

Following a concern from Councillor LeCount regarding the timescale of potential sites for development to be submitted by Uttlesford District Council, (UDC), the Local Plan and New Communities Manager agreed to bring the Council’s input forward.  He said sites allocated would have to be deliverable.

After receiving statistics from Councillor Evans on participation and responses, members undertook to encourage resident’s participation through their monthly meetings; newsletters; Parish magazines; churches and social media.

In answer to a question from Councillor Criscione, the Local Plan Project Manager said the current report on Issues and Options was complete.  However, he said as debate developed and the program continued there would be other lines of enquiry that would be picked up.

In response to a question from the Chair, Councillor Evans stated that the Local Plan must be evidence led.  He said the process would not be the same as before, and he stressed the importance of residents contributing to the process and their views being listened to.

In response to a further question from the Chair about information sharing specifically related to a call to sites from Cambridge and South Cambridge there was a meeting set up with Greater Cambridge and UDC next week.

To consider the Issues and Options report.

The Local Plans and New Communities Manager presented the report.

In response to questions, officers clarified the following about the Issues and Options stage of developing the new Local Plan:

·         The Community Stakeholder Forum will be considering nine local plan themes over a seven-month period. For each topic, there will be an online presentation given by an external speaker, followed by an online discussion by the forum. Both the speaker’s presentation and a link to the full forum meeting will be available for residents to access on the website.

·         To date, the Community Stakeholder Forum have met twice, and a small number of residents have already engaged with the consultation, following these meetings. It not unusual for consultations to receive a low level of responses when they first open, and officers expect it to gain traction as it is advertised further through methods such as social media and a leaflet drop.

·         All nine local plan themes will remain open throughout the consultation.

·         Officers will be working with multiple organisations, including the Environment Agency and Water Board, to provide evidence around infrastructure within the new Local Plan.

·         The membership of the Community Stakeholder Forum is published on the Council’s website and officers are currently gathering short biographies on each individual to include alongside this which will establish why they have been chosen to represent their special interest area.

·         The forum structure is an entirely new idea for developing the Local Plan and the membership of the Community Stakeholder Forum came from officers asking networks for nominations of people they think would be appropriate.

·         The Special interest areas originated from a report which was previously present to and agreed by the working group.

Members raised concerns about the membership of the Community Stakeholder Forum, particularly around the recruitment process and the bias to the north of the district. It was confirmed that the panel is not intended to represent the whole community, but rather to generate a conversation for the public to comment on, however officers recognised that the majority of members were from northern areas of the district so ensured that the outstanding vacancies were sourced from southern areas.  Councillors thanked officers for listening to members and changing the process in light of their concerns.

In addition, members requested that officers consider holding another Town and Parish Council Forum as this would allow another opportunity for stakeholders to engage with the consultation.

AGREED: That the proposed approach set out in this report be noted.