Agenda item

Planning and Sustainability – to receive a report (C-026-2020-21) on the Government White Paper “Planning for the Future”. This report provides members with a synopsis of the key proposals in the White Paper. Appendix A provides more detail on the proposals and Appendix B contains the suggested response from the Council to the questions posed in the consultation.

(1)          The Cabinet agreed the response to the Government White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ issued on 6 August 2020 for consultation.

(2)          Following the members workshop on the White Paper the comments made then were to be added to the Council’s response. These comments were to gathered together and reproduced in the Council Bulletin.

The Planning and Sustainability Portfolio Holder introduced the report on the Government Consultation on the Planning White Paper.

The Government White Paper “Planning for the Future” set out significant changes to the planning system for consultation.  The White paper stated specifically that it “has not comprehensively covered every aspect of the system, and the detail of the proposals will need further development pending the outcome of this consultation.”  The focus was on ideas rather than details of implementation, but it signalled an intention to change the system in a holistic manner, including the introduction of new legislation. This included a signal to speed up and simplify both the production and role of Local Plans and the management of planning applications. The emphasis on outcomes was focused on delivering housing development and detailed design of proposals. The proposed changes were in many ways radical, and if they were implemented would require new ways of working, new skill sets and, it appeared, a very significant amount of resources.

This report provided members with a synopsis of the key proposals in the White Paper and contained the suggested response from the Council to the questions posed in the consultation.

Following the recent member workshop a few amendments were made to the officer response and this would be published in the next council bulletin.

Councillor Philip commented that this was an interesting approach to planning but it seemed to take away local representation. Beauty and good design were just part of it. It needed Member involvement. We have a high percentage of green belt land as well as needing a high number of houses, these cannot be put together. Perhaps this should be put more strongly. Councillor Bedford agreed that protecting our greenbelt was a high priority and how we did that was going to be challenging. Councillor Philip said that we need to make it clear that matching Green Belt and Housing allocations did not work.

Councillor H Whitbread commented that she had major concerns in relation to the green belt, this was challenging for housing. We also needed to strengthen the need for local representation. She also had concerns about quality of housing and permitted development rights. Also, in terms of zoning it had to be a long term strategy. While she supported the principle and sprit of the simplification of the planning system, there was still some work to do.

Councillor Heap said this was a difficult one and added that good design was a difficult issue and should be handled locally. He was not aware that we had a problem with planning permission in our district at present although there were a lot of planning permissions were being sat on, so maybe the planning permission should live with the developer.

Councillor McCredie commented on beauty and placemaking. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder and beauty should be defined.

Councillor Bedford noted some key points that have come out, like the planning permission lives with the developer and in his view once a development had been approved but not completed in a certain amount of time, we should be charging rates on the premises.

Councillor Wixley agreed the green belt was important and so was green spaces to urban areas. He was puzzled about the proposition to abolish the duty to co-operate. Some development would straddle borders and we would need a duty to co-operate.

DECISION:

(1)          The Cabinet agreed the response to the Government White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ issued on 6 August 2020 for consultation.

(2)          Following the members workshop on the White Paper the comments made then were to be added to the Council’s response. These comments were to be gathered together and reproduced in the Council Bulletin.

Reasons for Proposed Decision:

•           To ensure that members are kept fully up to date on proposed changes to the Planning System.

•           To enable the Council to make a formal response to the Governments proposals. 

Other Options for Action:

Not to make a formal response to the White Paper consultation. This would mean that the Council misses the opportunity to influence further thinking on future changes to the Planning System that will be required prior to implementation.