Object

Representation ID: 10431

Received: 29/07/2022

Respondent: Bedfordia Developments Ltd and Bedfordshire Charitable Trust Ltd

Agent: DLP Planning Limited

Legally compliant? No

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? No

We object to this policy. The approach is not legally compliant in respect of the Sustainability Appraisal and Duty to Cooperate processes and fails all four soundness tests.

This representation relates to a site at land to the west of Clapham which did not form part of the 2020 Call for Sites exercise but should in any event have been subject to assessment by the Council as part of a positive approach to site identification in accordance with national policy and guidance (ID: 3-010-20190722).

This representations form should be read alongside the supporting Site Specific Representation Report – Land Adjacent Milton Hill, Clapham and the Spatial Strategy and Legal Compliance Representation Report that provides full details related to the site and the Council’s evidence base relating to the assessment of site options in this location and across the wider Borough. A Site Location Plan can be found in the accompanying Site-Specific Representation.

The site at Clapham is directly adjacent to the 806 Milton Hill Neighbourhood Development Plan allocation but lies just outside of the Parish boundary. The site is therefore located within the Oakley Parish and as such could not be allocated through the Clapham Neighbourhood Plan. Given the proximity to the allocated land and location within an identified growth location, the site presents an excellent opportunity to deliver additional growth to the settlement, which is recognised for its sustainability credentials as a Key Service Centre. Were it not for the effect of the administrative parish boundary geography upon the extent of the designated neighbourhood area the site would likely have been allocated as part of 806 Milton Hill. The evidence base for the Neighbourhood Plan, including a Design Code exercise covering the entire site area, is reflective of this.

The land allocated within the Clapham Neighbourhood Plan is currently the subject of a planning application, the details of which provide for all future infrastructure and services requirements necessary to enable the additional capacity for development on our clients’ adjacent land.

In the case of Clapham, the suitable extent of the preferred direction of growth west of the village has been arbitrarily limited by the extent of the designated neighbourhood area (based on parish boundaries) precluding the most effective use of land in this area. To achieve the objectives of the upcoming Local Plan 2040 higher rates of village-related growth must be promoted from the beginning of the 2020–2040 plan period. Details of suitable, available and achievable site options such as our client’s land adjacent Milton Hill provide one such opportunity that would complement the existing spatial strategy and would not in isolation materially affect the proposed approach in the Plan for Submission.

The Council’s assessment of housing requirements and site options within designated rural settlements is unsound. Despite the requirements set forth in Policy 1 and modifications to national policy and guidance, the Council has not altered the method used to evaluate reasonable alternatives in this component of the settlement hierarchy from that used to evaluate the adopted Local Plan 2030. This is the cause of the issues that have been identified in respect of housing land supply, rural vitality and the application of a stepped trajectory. The adoption of a Stepped Trajectory and the deliverability of the sites included in the Council’s trajectory is considered in the Bedford Local Plan 2040 Deliverability Assessment Update appended to the Spatial Strategy and Legal Compliance Representation.

Sites within rural settlements were disregarded at the initial stage of testing, as described in the SHLAA, solely on the grounds that they ran counter to the preferred spatial approach. Due to the apparent predetermination of the preferred approach and the unjustified decision to reject all village-related growth, it appears that Council has decided against evaluating all alternative options for growth. This fundamentally restricts the assessment of this component's potential contribution to an appropriate spatial strategy.

This circular reasoning cannot be used to support the conclusion that site suitability assessments and detailed or iterative testing of strategy options for levels of growth in the rural area (or at specific settlements) should not be conducted beyond that undertaken prior to the Regulation 18 consultation stage. Regardless of whether the Council will unjustifiably assert that it has "run out of time" to examine the situation in more detail, the Council's position is in direct conflict with paragraph 3.10 of the 2021 Development Strategy Topic Paper, which serves as the basis for the Regulation 18 Draft Plan.

In respect of village-related growth, considered under option 3c, the Topic Paper indicates highways constraints as a reason to reject this strategy. This is considered in detail in the Technical Note appended to this submission which was prepared and submitted in respect of our client’s wider land interests in September 2021. As is detailed in the Technical Note, the AECOM report focuses primarily on the evaluation of development in Bedford being given in the form of "either" a new community at Colworth or Twinwoods, or both. The local road network's capacity to support a more varied pattern of expansion among nearby communities as opposed to just at Colworth / Twinwoods does not appear to have been evaluated.

Specific capacity analyses have not been conducted for individual settlements. The Settlement Hierarchy Addendum reaffirms this (April 2022). The Council has simply decided not to evaluate whether the settlement hierarchy outlined in the 2030 Plan needs to be changed because no new allocations or expansions were planned in the major rural service centres.

The planned growth distribution is therefore only intended to enable the fulfilment of the existing rural allocations; it does not generate new demands or opportunities for rural areas.

This is a specific issue for Clapham where our client’s land adjacent Milton Hill would complement an established direction of growth. The SA at paragraph 7.23 asserts that housing development in rural areas may nonetheless significantly contribute to meeting housing needs and goes on to list specific locations that should be taken into account, which appears to be in direct conflict with the SHLAA Table 2.2 where all village-related sites are ruled inconsistent with the chosen strategy based on the SA findings. As a result, a number of rural locations are recommended as potential choices without a more thorough analysis or allocation for expansion.

The logic of the Council’s approach is particularly flawed in relation to Clapham, where Site ID: 3234 (corresponding to land allocated in the Clapham Neighbourhood Plan) is rejected from both sources due to its perceived inconsistency with the Plan’s spatial strategy despite having been identified as a suitable, sustainable and preferred direction of growth for the settlement.

Therefore, as drafted we consider that Policy DS5(S) is unsound as it is not Positively
Prepared, Justified, Effective or Consistent with National Policy.