Agenda and minutes
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Media
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Apologies for Absence and Declarations of Interest To receive any apologies for absence and declarations of interest. Minutes: Apologies for absence have been received from Councillors Criscione and De Vries.
There were no declarations of interest. |
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Minutes of the Previous Meeting To consider the minutes of the previous meeting. Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as a correct record. |
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To note the Local Plan Update. Additional documents: Minutes: The Interim Local Plans and New Communities Manager provided an update on the current progress of preparing the Local Plan. He said that the rapid staff turnover had resulted in the loss of local knowledge and understanding of the broader context of the plan’s preparation. However, to date, the Local Plan team were only approximately one week behind their project timetable.
Following the introduction, the Director of Planning highlighted that staff retention and recruitment was a top priority. This was echoed by the Portfolio Holder for Planning, Stansted Airport, Infrastructure Strategy and the Local Plan, who also gave thanks to the Interim Local Plans and New Communities Manager, as he was shortly stepping down from his role by mutual agreement.
The Chair asked if there were any other matters on the risk register which may need to be brought to members’ attention. The Interim Local Plans and New Communities Manager explained that there was a range of risks which the team continued to monitor, including choosing sites for strategic growth and meeting the housing number target. Due to staff numbers, their focus was on site assessments and liaising with infrastructure provisors on strategic site viability, in order to be ready to start site selection at the end of March.
In response to a question about the approach in which transport surveys were undertaken, officers clarified that they would be unable to make any decisions on where to assess transport if they had no indication of sites. The Site Screening process filtered out potentially undeliverable sites and allowed officers to begin to make some assumptions which could be tested in the relevant studies. If these sites were not feasible, another set of sites could then be tested.
Members discussion turned to the turnover of staff, which was reported to be 58% in the past 12 months, and had put the progress on the Local Plan’s preparation at severe risk. The following was noted: · The Director of Planning had conducted exit interviews with outgoing staff, but there was not a common theme for their resignations. Members raised concerns that further assurance needed to be made that it was not due to a culture problem. · The small size of the Local Plan team had always reduced the ability to be resilient as typically, one person specialises in one area. · There were a number of factors which made it difficult to recruit planning professionals. These included an increase of staff moving into the private sector and Brexit regulations making it more difficult to employ planners from countries such as Greece, where the planning system is based in many ways on the British system. · All vacancies in the Local Plan team were advertised on a microsite for Uttlesford Planning jobs throughout December 2022. In addition, these posts were also advertised through other channels, as part of the wider service recruitment. This included in the Planning Magazine, the Planning Resource email bulletins and an article published bout working for Uttlesford in Planning Resource. The email bulletin ... view the full minutes text for item SC43 |