Agenda item

To consider the Statement of Community Involvement.

The Local Plan and New Communities Manager presented the report with a revised version of the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) that had been updated since the meeting held on 18 August 2020 to make reference to the White Paper on the future of Planning and which also had taken on board the advice provided by the EELGA Peer Review Team. He said that the main changes from the previous SCI were detailed in Paragraph 7of the report and that much of the information in the report had already been discussed at this meeting.

Councillor Criscione suggested that due to the complexity of the Local Plan it would be helpful if a separate website was set up for the Local Plan. This proposed way forward was supported by Councillors LeCount and Sell.

The Chair asked the Local Plan and New Communities Manager to take this suggestion away as an action point. He also said that it was essential that Town and Parish Council elected representatives were kept in the loop.

The Chair summarised the main outcomes of the meeting, particularly in that significant progress had been made on project management issues and that there were outstanding governance issues that required clarification on the PID. He also thanked Councillors Criscione and Coote for their contributions as lead Members.

With reference to previous governance matters, the Leader referred Members to page 24 of the Agenda that defined the key individual roles. He said that the Chief Executive was the project sponsor but he re-stated that he considered himself to be a sponsor, working and meeting regularly with the Chief Executive.

The Chair said that he still considered that there remained a lack of clarity but welcomed the offer made by Councillor Evans to produce a supplementary governance document.

The meeting ended at 9.45pm.

APPENDIX

Cllr David Hall, Great Chesterford Parish Council

Remarks to Scrutiny Committee - 7th October, 2020

The list of ‘Other Consultees’, Appendix C in Agenda Item 3 - also in

Appendix B of the proposed Community Engagement Strategy adopted last week by the LPWG - contains no organisation associated with Great Chesterford. Yet in relation to the withdrawn Local Plan both the Examining Inspectors and Historic England attached particular importance to the national significance of the Roman and archaeological features at Great Chesterford - so why has the local History and Archaeological Society been ignored and other relevant local organisations not been included in the consultation list?

The documented record concerning the previous Plan shows that the same Officers now proposing close local community consultation failed last time to respond to my Parish Council’s detailed analysis and criticism of the Call for Sites evaluation relating to the NUGC site, failed to respond to correspondence, failed to follow-up expert landscape, archaeological and transport evidence provided by my Council, failed to provide promised information and generally failed to seek or engage in any meaningful dialogue with either the Parish Council or the local community about the NUGC proposals and their implications.

I also note, regarding the previous Plan, that the 2020 Annual Report of this Committee states that ‘unintentional oversight by an Officer’ is the reason proffered why elected Members and the public were not fully and properly informed about problems associated with the Regulation 19 Sustainability Appraisal. Comparison of the timeline submitted by the Chief Executive to the Committee by way of explanation with Minutes of the October 2018 PPWG and Council meetings at which the Plan was approved for submission to the Inspectors makes crystal clear that, despite already being in possession of AECOM’s draft Review of the SA, Officers failed to inform Members of the advice received that the SA was non-compliant with SEA Regulation requirements, and was otherwise materially deficient.

Instead, they allowed Full Council to remain in ignorance of the true position, subsequently informing Members that the purpose of the AECOM Review was merely ‘to test and strengthen the evidence base’ when they knew from AECOM that the SA had failed adequately to test reasonable alternative sites. Given the central importance of such matters for the soundness of the Plan, the explanation now put forward of an ‘unintentional oversight’ is patently absurd.

The issue for the Scrutiny Committee, therefore, is whether it can reasonably be satisfied that assurances now offered regarding full engagement and consultation in the preparation of the new Local Plan have any convincing validity. The experience of my Parish Council last time and the general record suggest that very close supervision by elected Members will be required of Officer performance to ensure that what is promised will be delivered - that the leopard, in other words, has actually changed its spots.

I should be grateful if the text of these remarks, which I will forward, is appended to the Minutes of this meeting.

Thank you.