To receive any declarations of
interest. Members are advised to consider the advice contained
within the Declaration of Interest advice attached to this
Agenda. If a Member declares an interest, they should complete
the Declaration of Interest
Form
The presentation by Adrian Verrall, (Strategic Planning Manager) will cover
the following:
Local Plan Examination;
The Inspectors' Report;
The review and Update process;
Evidence-gathering in the review process;
The Local Development Scheme.
Minutes:
Adrian Verrall, Strategic Planning Manager led the
discussion and made a PowerPoint presentation that highlighted the
following points:
The Plan provided certainty about
where future development would be;
This would help guide where
investment could go;
Currently the Council was involved
in two major infrastructure investment; through the HIF and MRN
(Main Road Network) process;
KCC were leading on the current
bid;
Constraints faced for this Plan
included around coastline and national wildlife, flood risk,
conservation areas and green wedges;
The strategy therefore was to
prioritise brownfield sites;
The examination was concluded in
July last year and the Inspectors concluded that the draft plan was
compliant subject to modifications that the Inspectors
proposed;
The draft Plan together with the
Inspectors’ modifications were going through the council
decision making process until they get to the approval stage;-
Key infrastructure needed to be set
up in tandem with major housing development;
A review would need to be conducted
in six months’ time from adoption of the Plan;
There was a duty to cooperate with
neighbouring authorities when developing the Plan;
The Council would then have to
inform MHCLG about the outcome of the decision on the new Local
Plan.
Members asked questions and made
comments as follows:
There was a need to consider
contingency planning in relation to strategic planning for when
there is future pandemic;
Before the new Local Plan was
adopted, was there a grace period during which time planning
application decisions were suspended?
How did neighbourhood plans fit into
the district Plan?
In response Mr Verrall said the following:
There were some uncertainties
characterizing the environment in which this plan was being
developed. These included the challenges brought by the COVID-19
pandemic and DCO decision regarding Manston Airport;
The DCO decision was likely to be
made on 10 July 2020;
Once the decision was made, that
would have an impact on the content of the new Local Plan through
the review;
MHCLG had produced some guidelines
for future planning;
Planning applications would be
processed as per usual timescales, without the need to suspend that
process;
Neighbourhood plans would be
supporting the main district Local Plan. Officers were currently
working with parish/town councils to coordinate the process for
developing these plans.