Plan for submission evidence base

Object

Representation ID: 10444

Received: 29/07/2022

Respondent: Gallagher Developments Group Limited

Agent: Barton Willmore

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? No

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

A review of the Bedford Borough Council’s Sustainability Appraisal (SA) Report (April 2022) supporting the Bedford Borough Local Plan has been undertaken. The SA Report builds upon the SA Scoping Report published in July 2020 as part of the Issues and Options consultation for the 2040 Local Plan. The SA Report is currently undergoing consultation alongside the draft 2040 Local Plan. A review has been undertaken with the aim of influencing the next stages of the SA process as the 2040 Local Plan progresses.
The SA Report has been read in conjunction with its supporting appendices and an April 2022 update of the SA Scoping Report. These documents have been reviewed against the requirements of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004 (the “SEA Regulations”) and Section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (the “Act”), which sets out requirements for SA. SA is a complex and legalistic process and should be undertaken iteratively, alongside the preparation of the Plan. A Local Plan must be prepared in accordance with Section 39 of the Act “with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development”. It should therefore be informed by the SA process, which itself must comply with the SEA Regulations.
This SA Review has focused upon the objectives used within the SA Framework, their application within the SA Scoring process and any notable deficiencies identified within the SA Report.
The objectives utilised within the SA Framework are provided at Paragraph 3.73 and within Appendix 1 of the SA Report Appendices. The objectives cover a multitude of different technical considerations, however can be narrow in their scope of application. For example, climate change is primarily categorised under Objective 3 ‘Reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and improve energy efficiency’, with the indicators including carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption and road transport energy consumption. Whilst this covers climate change mitigation and the effect of minimising carbon dioxide equivalent emissions to the atmosphere, the SA should recognise the importance of climate change resilience and adaptation. Climate resilience should be embedded within the core of the Local Plan 2040 to ensure that the relevant plans, policies and allocations are able to adapt over the same time period that is covered by the Plan. This is particularly acute with new developments and the ability to adapt to extreme weather events, increased temperatures, decreased summer precipitation and increased winter precipitation – to name but a few critical climatic changes forecast in the medium to long term and over the Plan period. It is recognised that there is a strong link with Objective 2, particularly with the delivery of biodiversity net gain and provision for ecosystem services, however these links and intersections should be explicitly recognised and appraised in order to provide a holistic assessment of climate change.
Other SA Objectives are also narrow in their scope, such as Objective 7 (Health and Wellbeing) focusing on a number of ‘traditional’ metrics such as life expectancy at birth, social deprivation and young people not in education, employment or training. Key facets of health and wellbeing are missed and it is not clear that they have been considered. Given the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, matters such as social isolation should be prioritised for existing and future residents. Whilst the objective is grounded in the spatial context of the health and wellbeing priorities of the local area through the Bedford Borough Health and Wellbeing Strategy, it could be updated to reflect advances in the consideration of place-based health and wellbeing enhancement. Furthermore, social infrastructure underpins the ability of a plan area to maintain health and wellbeing standards and therefore these types of interventions should also be included within the scoring framework, where possible. In times of inflation and rapidly rising living costs, focus should also be given to those at risk of poverty, including children, and the links that this can have with mental, psychological and community wellbeing as well as physical health.
With regards to the application of the SA Framework, the SA needs more clarity regarding the temporality of the likely significant effects. It is clear that the Plan will have varying impacts over different time periods (whether that be short, medium or long term impacts). This is covered at a high level at Paragraph 3.77. Yet, time periods are not provided to distinguish what might be a short term or temporary effect to a likely significant effect that may be long term and permanent. Without the detail of how the types of likely significant effect will be categorised, as well as any potential differential weighting of the temporality of effect, the assessment methodology of the SA is not robust. This should be addressed at the next stage of the SA.
This is also the case when considering the likelihood of a significant effect on the environment (High, Medium, Low – or whatever scale is to be chosen). The uncertainty of effects occurring could influence decision-making within the SA and needs to be clearly outlined from the outset for consistency. This is particularly critical for the consideration of SA objectives for which there might be known future time limits to certain technologies – such as the ban of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 – which might directly impact scorings for transport-centric objectives (Objective 2, Objective 15), but also have indirect effects on other objectives such as air quality (Objective 1).
The SA Report provides an assessment of the cumulative and synergistic effects of the Local Plan 2040, with detail provided at Paragraph 11.9 and Appendix 10 of the SA Report Appendices. However, this detail focuses primarily upon the potential cumulative and synergistic effects of individual policies on the SA Framework in-combination and does not detail the approach to cumulative assessment. Indeed, the assessment of proposed Local Plan 2040 Site Allocations are categorised into those which ‘are likely to have positive cumulative effects on the use of sustainable transport modes [our emphasis]’ or ‘will have positive umulative and synergistic effects on the provision of green infrastructure [our emphasis].’ Clearly there are opportunities for cumulative and synergistic effects to exist amongst topics broader than purely sustainable travel and green infrastructure provision, despite how important that they are. For example, climate change, biodiversity and water availability and quality all have the potential for cumulative effects when sites are considered cumulatively. The SA Report should provide context for the methodology utilised to the assessment of these cumulative effects and an explanation as to how these effects may occur as the detail currently provided is limited. This context is also key with regards to fulfilment of the requirements under the Habitats Directive and the potential for in combination impacts.
The SA does not provide sufficient clarity as to how mitigation is applied across the sites taken forward and does not differentiate between the types of mitigation likely to be employed. The 2040 Local Plan preferred strategy highlights the need for growth across the urban area (particularly around Bedford) in tandem with strategic locations adjacent to the urban area and growth locations on the A421. To minimise the risk of challenge, it should be made clear if transport mitigation (Objective 1) is considered within the SA framework and if so, the underpinning assumptions, as it currently reads as though only existing public transport links and existing amenities are utilised within the scoring framework and does not account for any additional enhancements and improvements that a development might bring.
It is noted within Appendix 1 that Natural England provided a consultation response on a previous version of the SA Report (2020) that the SA ‘is not currently informed by the findings and recommendations of a HRA…’ with the need for evidence based assessments and mitigation measures, if required, for specific site allocations. The SA Report states that requirements of the SA Regulations relating to the Habitats Directive as covered in Paragraphs 2.10-2.11 and 3.3-3.71.
It is then stated at Paragraph 2.11 of the SA Report that a HRA Screening exercise has since been undertaken with Natural England: ‘the screening shows that significant adverse impacts may be anticipated and therefore an assessment to consider potential impacts in more detail and determine appropriate mitigation to ensure that the Plan would have no adverse effect on any relevant site has been undertaken in agreement with Natural England. The results of that work has been included where appropriate in this Sustainability Report.’
It is not clear that the consultation comments made by Natural England for the need for the SA to be informed by the findings and recommendations of a HRA have been considered. Indeed, there is no explicit mention of the HRA process throughout the SA Report. This is clearly a potential point of challenge and should be addressed. Whilst it might be the case that the HRA is ongoing and has not yet been able to iteratively inform the SA, this must be stated and explained clearly, rather than citing paragraph references for which there is no material discussion of the necessary matters.