Comment

Representation ID: 9970

Received: 29/07/2022

Respondent: Gladman Developments Ltd

In accordance with Section 19 of the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, policies set out in Local Plans must be subject to Sustainability Appraisal (SA). Incorporating the requirements of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004, SA is a systematic process that should be undertaken at each stage of the Plan’s preparation, assessing the effects of the Local Plan’s proposals on sustainable development when judged against reasonable alternatives.
A critical stage of the SA process is the consideration of alternative approaches and options for delivering the objectives of the Plan. These are often topics such as housing growth and distribution, employment land delivery and site-specific options. To assess reasonable alternatives, different options for delivering the Local Plan should be developed and assessed at a strategic level against the SA objectives and baseline conditions.
A series of options for the spatial strategy are tested through the SA with option 2Bi ultimately being preferred. This option comprises of growth within the urban area, growth adjacent to the urban area, growth within the transport corridor, land within the parishes within the transport corridor and a new settlement.
Of the other options tested, Option 8 is the most similar with the key difference between the two being a choice between a new settlement or village based growth. Determining that a new settlement is preferable to village based growth is the driver for proposing a stepped trajectory. None of the options readily combine the options of a new settlement and village based growth and this is considered to be a failing of the assessment. There are always numerous options that can be assessed but it is alarming that various scales of growth to the villages have not been considered. In each of the options that include village based growth the minimum quantum of development is 4,000 dwellings. Gladman query why less development to the villages alongside the new settlement option has not been considered. Especially as all or nothing to the villages as an option is always likely to be appear more negatively in a rounded assessment.
The chosen preferred development strategy is then repeated throughout the assessment of reasonable alternatives with sites described as ‘not consistent with the Councils preferred strategy’. This is even where sites comprise part of the preferred strategy but have not been allocated. This is considered another failing of the SA that should be addressed. This suggests that the sites that would comprise some of the options were pre-determined.
This certainly seems to be the case for the sites adjoining the urban area. The SA states at paragraph 9.9:
The Council has decided that sites adjoining the edge of the urban area in most instances should not be part of the local plan strategy because, in many locations, the gap between the edge of the town and villages surrounding it is very narrow and the strategic expansion of the urban area in recent years has already reduced that separation. The Council’s strategy is not to infill those gaps but to support only two sites adjacent to the urban area, where there are clear benefits associated with delivering the Council’s strategic green infrastructure priorities.
All other sites adjoining the urban area have been ruled out in favour of the two strategic scales, even where they would not cause coalescence and provide green infrastructure benefits such as land Gladman are promoting within 0.5km of the urban area. Finally, there appear to be a number of errors in the overall assessment of Option 8 and inconsistencies between the assessment of Option 2bi which will be discussed below. Amendments to the scoring of Option 8 may change where it features within the Council’s preference and at the very least shows the importance of testing an option of village based growth but at a reduced scale.
Option 8 is marked down for potentially resulting in more trips by the private car to Bedford urban area, most of the villages already have a level of service and facility provision allowing this to be minimised in the first instance whereas a new settlement option is just as likely to increase trips to the Bedford urban area.
Growth in the villages is considered to affect the vitality and viability of the urban area, this is again just as likely through the new settlement option. Increased service provision within existing communities provides competition for the urban area whilst also allowing a potential reduction in trips to the urban area.
A reduction in carbon emissions is scored negatively in the village option due to an expected increase of the private car and commercial vehicles. This does not take account of mitigation measures such as the implementation of car clubs or mobility hubs associated with growth in the villages that would not only benefit new residents but also existing communities. Whilst an increase of the private car would also be expected with the new village option, this does not provide the opportunity to provide potential mitigation measures for existing communities like growth in the villages does.
This is just a few of the instances where the assessment of these options should be revisited. As such, Gladman remind the Council that there have now been several instances where the failure to undertake a satisfactory SA has resulted in Plans failing the test of legal compliance at Examination or being subjected to legal challenge. We reserve the right to submit further comments on the Sustainability Appraisal either in written Examination Hearing Statements or orally during Examination Hearing Sessions.