Issue - meetings

(Planning and Sustainability) To consider the attached report (C-013-2020-21).

(1)  The Cabinet agreed the Approach to Managing the Effects of Air Pollution on the Epping Forest Special Area of Conservation for the purposes of formal consultation with Natural England and the Conservators;

(2)  The Cabinet agreed that any necessary and appropriate changes arising from that consultation and any data and targets arising from the finalisation of the current air quality modelling work would be incorporated into the Approach to Managing the Effects of Air Pollution on the Epping Forest Special Area of Conservation;

(3)  The Cabinet agreed that the adoption of the Approach to Managing the Effects of Air Pollution on the Epping Forest Special Area of Conservation was delegated to the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Sustainability, submitted to the Local Plan Inspector examining the Council’s emerging Local Plan and be used to inform the Council’s updated Habitats Regulations Assessment for the emerging Local Plan; and

(4)  That upon adoption, the Approach to Managing the Effects of Air Pollution on the Epping Forest Special Area of Conservation would be a material consideration in the determination of planning applications and permitted development rights proposals within the Epping Forest District Council administrative area.

The Planning and Sustainability Portfolio Holder introduced the report on managing the effects of air pollution on the Epping Forest District Special Area of Conservation. He noted that the Special Areas of Conservation were internationally important nature conservation sites within the UK. The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 provided the regulatory framework against which plans and projects, including the Council’s Local Plan and individual planning applications, needed to be assessed.  In addition, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), affords such sites the highest levels of protection in the hierarchy of sites designated to protect important features of the natural environment.

The legislation set out that where a land use plan, either alone or in combination, was likely to have a significant effect on an internationally important site, the plan-making authority must undertake a Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA). This applied to Local Plans produced by local authorities and in addition to Neighbourhood Plans produced by local communities. Such plans set out a broad quantum of development growth. HRA work must therefore consider the overall impacts of such growth – in -combination with neighbouring authorities – and where there were any likely significant effects; adverse effects on the integrity of the site must be ruled out.

A significant proportion, and the most integrated part, of the SAC lies within the Epping Forest District Council administrative area. The remainder lies within the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Redbridge (the latter of which accommodates a very small proportion of the SAC). As such, EFDC, as a Competent Authority under the Habitats Regulations, was required to ensure that planning application decisions comply with those Regulations and did not result in adverse effects on the integrity of the Epping Forest SAC.

This report set out the proposed approach to managing and mitigating the effects of new development on the Epping Forest SAC in relation to air quality. 

Councillor Chris Pond noted that the strategy was a work in progress that seems to be rather aspirational, we should be working towards mitigation for better human health and bio-diversity.  The damaging effects of particulates on the SAC did not seem to be particularly highlighted in the report and it should be comprehensively dealt with. We need to shift development away from the SAC and the most popular parts of the district. Intensification of development on the Epping site would change Epping completely, which may be difficult to justify due to the closeness to the SAC. In his view, development should be shifted to somewhere in the north west of the district, a long way from the SAC and use this to encourage tourism to the forest. He feared that the Inspector and Natural England would find this insufficient.

Councillor Bedford responded that he agreed with some of Councillor Pond’s comments but that we were where we were with the Local Plan and had to see it through because developers were waiting to build. The locations had been carefully brought out through the plan; those locations  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34