Issue - meetings

To note the findings of Phase 2 of the landscape work undertaken toinform the emerging Local Plan.

The Local Plans and New Communities Manager said that the phase 2 report looked at the landscape around new settlements.

Katrina Davies from LUC presented the report.  She said the aim of the study was to assess the 12 potential new settlement locations in the context of the rural character of the district on a strategic level.  It provided a commentary on the sites without comparing them to each other. 

Areas of discussion included: -

·         The parcels of land had been submitted by different promotors and were therefore assessed according to what had been submitted.

·         The consultants had not been asked to look at other districts.

·         Carver Barracks had been included because it was the largest brown field site in the district, there was no indication from the Ministry of Defence that they wanted to sell the land.

·         The visual representations did not reflect the differences in topography throughout the district.

·         Councillor Caton raised a concern about the inconsistency of sites, for example, at Ugley, which was immediately adjacent to Stansted the coalescence of the site was not being taken into consideration.  The Local Plans and New Communities Manager agreed to provide a response after the meeting.

·         Councillor Tayler said that the views from the perspective of walkers were important alongside the private views of residents and asked if he could have further discussion with the Local Plans and New Communities Manager and the New Communities Senior Planning Officer, this was agreed.

Councillor Freeman left the meeting at 9:06pm