A Localism and Decentralisation Bill was finally published in December 2010 but is complicated and not expected to become law until 2012. We sought advice on what it meant from the Head of Planning at Charnwood Borough Council.
How will the new Local Plan be decided? Charnwood will still have to produce Local Development Framework 'Core Options', but instead of having the Regional targets, there will be locally determined targets based on "evidence", such as the national 2008-2018 Household Projections. This is specified in law along with other sources of information as the necessary evidence to enable local housing targets to be derived. There are no further proposals to amend the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, which is the basic town planning Act, to change the way development plan documents are prepared. On the most conservative expectations (ie natural population growth and taking account of migration into and out of the borough) we would expect that the evidential requirement would mean building 750 houses/year, or 15,000 houses in the plan period 2008-2028.
In other words there will still be house building targets but with added financial incentives.
When will Charnwood decide locations for development? At the end of the day the Council's Cabinet will have to approve housing targets for the Borough and the decisions it takes have to be based on the evidence. We expect these targets to be announced within the next six months. These targets will underpin the Core Strategy which will ultimately need to be approved by full Council before being submitted to the Secretary of State.
We expect the new Council to hold a public consultation this year, based on those targets and the evidence base.
Predetermination of Planning matters The law says that councillors must not 'pre-determine' planning matters before decisions are ready to come to council. This means, for example, that they cannot join protest groups etc. If they do so they will be advised by the Borough's legal team that they should not vote.
In summary the changes in the Bill state that a councillor is not to be considered to have a
closed mind when making a decision just because of what they had previously
said or done which indicated their view on the matter. But
there is still some debate as to the significance of this change. The Council has advised:
'it does not alter the fact that a councillor who has predetermined a matter or is
biased should not take part, only sets out in statute specific factors
which should not be taken into account in reaching that judgement.'
So we have to tread carefully.
Still in the firing line! During the whole of their four year period of office, the Tories have failed to further protect those areas that still lie in areas of developer proposals such as Thurmaston, Outwoods or Garendon.
I have learnt a lot about how the law works by working with Hashok Parmar. I have always said that the way to rid Garendon of the threat of development is to use brownfield sites and seek a better alternative on less valued land. Hashok has impressed upon me the need to focus directly on the key points that will effect change. Names on petitions and pages of information on the web are all very well, but we have to win a battle for survival here. And it is robust arguments that will win.
Thanks for supporting Hashok Parmar and me.
Cllr Max Hunt, 58 William st, Loughborough. LE11 3BZ