Minutes:
Gemma Wildman gave the Forum an update on the emerging Local Plan.
She highlighted the work carried out over the last couple of years and explained that there have been delays for different reasons which she detailed. She explained that a revised LDS was published in July 2021.
She explained that the latest delays have been attributed to the site assessment work have taken longer which has taken longer than had been anticipated which has then led to delays with the transport assessment work and the appointment of the consultant to oversee that aspect of the work.
A new version of the Local Plan timetable is therefore going to be presented to Cabinet on the 3 February which is proposed to go out to public consultation in the Summer of 2022. Some of the issues which will be looked at will include specific deliverable sites and it will be much more about supporting investment and growth. She added that settlement boundaries will also be reintroduced which was something that was suggested and asked for as part of the earlier consultation.
Cllr Mrs Laws stated that there is the will and want to bring economic growth and development to Fenland and there will be more flexibility in the proposed plan, than there is in the current plan which is very out of date. She added that the team are being held up by the consultants which has caused the delays, but they should be thanked and applauded for their work to date.
John Maxey referred to one of the reasons for delay which had been listed as transport assessments and asked whether it was linked to the funding for the Wisbech Access Study. Gemma stated that it is not linked and explained that there were delays in appointing consultants in the first instance which added a month to the timetable and there were also delays in obtaining additional information. Gemma explained that there are difficulties currently with regard to the transport assessment work as data needs to be analysed differently which is taking longer.
John Maxey stated that the delay is not stifling development in the main settlements, however there a lot of the large allocations that are in the process of being delivered rather than actually happened already. He added that a lot of the villages have already reached their thresholds and he asked whether there is an obvious slowdown in delivery because of the delay. Gemma explained that she has only reviewed information from last year and has not looked at the status of development since March. She added that the Government has recently released the results of the housing delivery test where they ranked the performance of the local authorities against their housing targets over the last three years and work out if they have met their target and the Government concluded that Fenland met 95% of their target.
John Maxey stated that given that the threshold has been met there is still the scope to grant more consents in villages if there are applications being put forward that warrant it. Gemma Wildman stated that each application should be looked at to see how it fits against the criteria in the current local plan, the same criteria process needs to be followed. John Maxey asked for clarity that given that the delay is adding more years until the next review is due, he presumes that threshold levels are not currently being used as reasons for refusal. David Rowen stated that the thresholds that are set out in the Local Plan, and since an appeal decision in Manea a few years ago, it is not something that has been used as a reason for refusal or something that would be sustainable at appeal, and therefore each application is looked at on its planning merits, rather than the threshold and consultation response type of approach which is set out in the local plan.