Minutes:
The following speakers spoke on item 7 – Proposed response to Government consultation – Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: reforms to national planning policy.
Councillor Chanot who spoke on behalf of Farringdon Parish Council advised that the Local Plan had been taken over by changes to Government policy and referred to Michael Gove’s Steering Statement of 6 December 2022. There had been at least 30 councils who had recognised the importance of suspending any changes until the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was in place and suggested that the Strategic Planning Committee should follow suit. She referred to the Scrutiny Committee on 2 February where discussions took place about the failings of the consultation process and that a motion had been raised by the former Chair and member of Strategic Planning Committee that another consultation should be held with full facts presented and properly analysed once the NPPF had been published later this spring.
Councillor Chanot suggested that Strategic Planning Committee should recommend to Full Council that the Local Plan process be suspended until the revised NPPF was published. Thereafter the emerging local plan and sustainability appraisal and supporting evidence including the HELAA be revisited and be consistent with new Government Policy. Finally all residents should be afforded full details in line with transparency and all resident’s views properly taken into account.
Councillor Hattan spoke on behalf of Bishops Clyst Parish Council raising concerns about question 11 which covered the examination of plans and for paragraph 35(b) on page 12 to be retained as the retained provisions in paragraphs 31 and 35 did not cover this.
He advised that the parish council had commissioned a report from a planning consultant on the Local Plan process who had raised several areas where the criteria for local plans would change. In particular, paragraph 17 of the NPPF consultation document which states ‘Authorities can begin planning in line with these changes, should they be implemented following public consultation, in Spring 2023. We recognise that any changes to emerging plans which are necessary may result in delays in getting an up-to-date plan in place. So, to reduce the risk of communities being exposed to speculative development, we propose the following time limited arrangements. For the purposes of decision making, where emerging Local Plans have been submitted for examination or where they have been subject to a Regulation 18 or 19 consultation which included both a policies map and proposed allocation towards meeting housing need, those authorities will benefit from a reduced housing land supply requirement. This will be a requirement to demonstrate a four year supply of land for housing instead of the usual five. These arrangements would apply for a period of two years from the point that these changes to the framework take effect, since our objective to provide time for review while incentivising plan adoption.’
The parish council questioned the prudence of continuing with the Local Plan process until the revised NPPF had been issued by Government and requested that Strategic Planning Committee recommended to Full Council that the local plan process be suspended until the revised NPPF was published and the housing targets reassessed.
Nigel Dutt sent in a question to the Assistant Director – Planning Strategy and Development Management and asked for it to be read out during the meeting. The question read as follows:
Following item 7 and noting the reaction by many other local councils, will the planning officers be making a recommendation at this meeting on whether the uncertainty around the proposed NPPF changes should have any immediate effect on the content or timescale of the proposed EDDC 2024 – 2040 Local Plan. In response the Assistant Director Planning Strategy and Development Management advised there was no intention to make any further recommendations at this stage.
The following statement was read out on behalf of Councillor Les Bayliss, Chairman of Cranbrook Town Council on item number 9 - District heating and its reliability and resilience.
“The report in front of councillors today was considered in draft form at the meeting of the Cranbrook Strategic Delivery Board on 23 January 2023. At that meeting, the councillors who represent Cranbrook advised that the report was misleading in two respects:
In Cranbrook Town Council’s opinion, the current system is not fit for purpose. Another example is the current meter and billing issues and E.ON’s total failure to respond to and resolve these.
Whilst the report talks about the resilience of district heating itself, what it does not talk about is the lack of E.ON ability and resilience to respond locally to issues. It doesn’t challenge the lack of availability of sufficient engineering staff to respond to major outages which arise regularly outside normal working hours. There seems to be a need to challenge the ongoing investment by E.ON in providing enough resources to respond when needed. Even the best systems fail from time to time and the test is whether the organisation is able and ready to provide a prompt and effective response when that happens. Telling people who report a failure of heating and hot water on a Friday evening that they will have an engineer appointment the following week is not helpful. Those with boilers can turn to an emergency heating engineer if one is needed – with district heating that is not an option.
On balance, Cranbrook Town Council would probably endorse the recommendation to support the roll-out of district heating networks but there has to be a much more robust challenge and oversight by East Devon District Council in the future. East Devon District Council has been leaving the private sector to get on with it in Cranbrook unchecked. That has to change with Cranbrook and also with regard to the emerging Local Plan which to date is proposing the same approach with the proposed second new community. Please learn lessons and improve.”