Plan for submission evidence base

Object

Representation ID: 9989

Received: 29/07/2022

Respondent: Old Road Securities PLC

Agent: DLP Planning Limited

Legally compliant? No

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? No

The approach to preparation of the Plan for Submission Local Plan 2040 is not legally compliant in respect of the Sustainability Appraisal process.

Old Road Securities (ORS) has engaged at all previous consultation stages undertaken as part of plan-making for the Local Plan 2040. Details of our client’s land interests are registered under Site IDs 604 (Land off Roxton Road (c.100 units) and 645 (500 units known and ‘Willoughby Park’). Indicative Masterplans for both options are provided as Appendix 1 and 2 to this form. These interests were the subject of detailed representations and comments on the proposed strategy as part of the Council’s Summer 2021 Preferred Strategy Options and Draft Policies consultation. Issues identified with the proposed approach have not been addressed as part of the Council’s Plan for Submission nor have our client’s site interests been subject to any further detailed or iterative testing, as required. As such, these representations should in conjunction with our client’s previous submissions, full details of which are contained at Appendix 3.

Our main submissions concern the proposed Plan and the methodology and conclusions of the Sustainability Appraisal. The Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations of 2004 (SEA Regulations) are not satisfied in several respects. These concerns were first identified in a ‘Review of Draft [2021] Sustainability Appraisal Findings’ included at Appendix 6 of our client’s previous representations.

The Council has not adequately accommodated the requirements mandated by Policy 1 of the adopted Local Plan 2030 and the need for an immediate review in terms of assessing a full range of reasonable alternatives to the same level of detail as the selected option, namely fully assessing the potential effects of detailed site options for allocations across the settlement hierarchy.

Circularity in the site evaluation and Sustainability Appraisal processes highlights the basic faults in the Council's strategy. The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment process was used to determine the suitability of sites, according to paragraph 9.13 of the 2022 Sustainability Appraisal, whereas Table 2.2 of the SHLAA document justifies the exclusion of sites at Stage 1 of the assessment where they are not thought to fit the Council's chosen strategy.

This might be taken as confirmation that the Council has already decided on its preferred strategy before conducting further testing. It has also chosen not to consider all other growth options out of pure conflict with the unjustified decision to reject all village-related growth and limit any potential contribution from this component to the spatial strategy.

Not one of the proposed rural sites is deemed suitable, available, or feasible under the SHELAA process, therefore further testing is prohibited on this basis even if the SA partially recognises the option and sustainability of village-related expansion (i.e., a "reasonable alternative") (see paragraph 7.13). The sites have merely been rejected due to what seems to be a contradiction with the spatial approach; they have not been evaluated for suitability under Stage 2 of the SHLAA process or subjected to any other thorough examination. Accordingly, the assessments do not provide a robust justification for the approach taken to site selection and supporting growth.

All village sites in all settlements are judged similarly as being in conflict with the spatial plan and hence undesirable, according to the SA's unsupported conclusions, which appears to be the advocated position of the Council. The SHLAA determines that any village sites are "inconsistent" with the plan. This circular reasoning cannot be used to support the conclusion that the suitability of site options should not be further evaluated, nor should strategy options for levels of growth in rural areas (or at specific settlements) be tested in greater detail or through more iterations than were undertaken prior to the Regulation 18 consultation stage.

When village-related growth has been tested under the Sustainability Appraisal process, it remains the case that testing has only been done with the presumption that all settlements at the same level of the hierarchy will have "flat" development quanta (500 units in Category 1 villages and 35 units in Category 2 villages). This is the same approach to the Local Plan 2030, which deferred allocations to Neighbourhood Plans as part of a foreshortened plan period and prior to substantial changes to national policy in the NPPF2021. It is fundamentally unjustified, having already received on ‘reprieve’ on the requirements for sound strategic plan-making and noting failures in the delivery of the current strategy and the explicit requirements for immediate review, not to update this aspect of the methodology.

The Council’s current position is also further contradicted by the conclusions of previous SA exercises (January 2018 and September 2018) exploring options for either an increased housing requirement or extended plan period (i.e., the same as the requirements now necessitated by Policy 1) that demonstrated that higher levels of growth (4,000 or 5,100 dwellings) at Key Service Centres could be just as sustainable as new settlement options. There is therefore no justification why levels of additional growth broadly in-line with these parameters is now viewed as ‘inconsistent’ with the strategy and not capable of complementing a hybrid approach.

Whether or not the Council will unjustifiably claim it has ‘run out of time’ to look at matters in the greater detail, the Council’s position is directly at odds with paragraph 3.10 of the 2021 Development Strategy Topic Paper informing the Regulation 18 Draft Plan:

“For the purpose of defining the options, assumptions need to be made about the potential capacity of each broad location for housing and employment growth. It is very important to note at this stage that these assumptions are for the purpose of testing only. They are informed by the quantum of development put forward through the call for sites process but they are not based on specific site appraisals (which will form the basis of further testing following this consultation).”

We therefore have significant concerns relating to the legal compliance of the SA sitting behind the submission version of the Local Plan. We do not consider that there has been sufficient testing of reasonable alternatives and even within the preferred approach, there appears to be a significant number of sites within the rural areas of the transport corridor that have been dismissed without justification or sufficient evidence.
Therefore, as draft we consider that the SA is not legally compliant and contributes towards the soundness failings of the wider strategy.