Agenda and minutes

There were none.

The minutes of the meeting of the Joint Planning Committee held on 26 October 2010 were agreed and signed by the Chair.

• Personal
• Prejudicial

Councillor Millar declared a Personal interest in item 6 – West Northamptonshire Pre Submission Joint Core Strategy in so far as the discussion related to the WNDC Northampton Planning Committee of which he was a member.

 Councillor Church declared a Personal interest in item 6 – West Northamptonshire Pre Submission Joint Core Strategy in so far as the discussion related to the WNDC Northampton Planning Committee of which he was a member.

To consider any issues that the Chairman is of the opinion are Matters of Urgency.

There were none.

Roger Kingston stated that the revised Joint Core Strategy had ignored the thousands of comments made by the public in respect of the consultation on the Emergent Joint Core Strategy. No revisions had been made and the report stated, in his view arrogantly, that no changes were required. Paul Hobden in a recent article on trends in planning strategy had quoted Andrea Leadson’s comments that planning in West Northamptonshire was in a mess; there was no respect of history or planning policy. Mr Kingston referred to what he believed had been the mistakes of the development of Northampton East. It was critical that infrastructure was put in before development took place. The development of Northampton East had not done anything to protect Northampton Town Centre. He believed that the Joint Core Strategy was an unsound foundation upon which to base planning decisions and noted the spin in respect of the orbital by-pass (North West Northampton) that would be a single carriageway road to nowhere. Mr Kingston commented that unless Councillors abandoned the Joint Core Strategy he would continue to campaign against them at the forthcoming local elections in May.

David Ballard stated that he was the new Chair of the Mid Northamptonshire Parishes Association. They had been involved in this process for some years and wished to put a marker down in respect of their continuing interest. The Association shared concerns that infrastructure should be put in place before development took place. He noted that the Joint Core Strategy did recognise this but that there was no detail as to how this would be achieved. He understood that other public bodies such as the NHS and Education were independent but would have preferred more detail on how this infrastructure would be dealt with.

Councillor S Hollowell commented that his comments were directed at the public. The Joint Core Strategy being presented to the meeting was very different to that presented a year previously. Some people would be happy with it and some would not. People should remain engaged with the process; if they did not others would, so that at a public inspection, a Inspector might be influenced by developers and other interests. The public needed to ensure that their voice was heard.

(copy attached)

The Head of the JPU submitted a report that sought approval for the publication of the Pre Submission version of the West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy, as attached to the report, for the statutory six weeks representation period in accordance with Regulations 27 and 28 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008. Any representations should be in respect of the soundness and legality of the document. He referred in particular to paragraphs 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 of the report and noted that the Pre Submission Draft did not fully accord with the RSS in the light of the Government’s intention to repeal  RSSs but did reflect local need and deliverability.  It did set out where development would and would not take place and where land would be protected. The overriding principle was “no infrastructure, no development”.

The Head of the JPU commented that the Joint Core Strategy was the longer term strategic plan for the area. It was not intended to deal with detail. It provided a spatial vision and listed activities that would take place in different areas. The process had begun with an Issues and Options exercise in 2007 which had led to the Emergent Joint Core Strategy in 2009 and a Regulation 25 Consultation to highlight other related issues. There had been significant public response to these consultations that had been reported to the Joint Planning Committee over the previous year and the Officer response to the consultation on the Emergent Joint Core Strategy formed Appendix 2 of the report. The report before the Joint Committee was the culmination of all of that work. A list of documents forming the Evidence Base was set out on page 186 of the Pre Submission Draft and the documents themselves either were or shortly would be available from the JPU’s web site. The Communication and Consultation Strategy that the Joint Committee had previously approved, was appended at Appendix 3.

The Head of the JPU referred to the Pre Submission Draft of the Joint Core Strategy that was appended to the report as Appendix 1 and highlighted the sections within it. The Strategy sought to maximise the use of existing land and buildings but recognised that all of the demand could not be met without Sustainable Urban Extensions (SUEs). 50,150 homes needed to be provided by 2026 which was a significant reduction on the RSS figure of 62,000. 16,000 jobs were also needed by 2026 across a broad economic base. Appendix 4 of the Pre Submission Draft set out the Infrastructure Delivery Plan Schedule that had been compiled following extensive consultations with service providers and partnering authorities. It set out estimated costs and timescales and the policy requirements for each SUE. Other key documents to the Pre Submission Draft included a Sustainability Appraisal and Equalities Impact Assessment. If the Joint Committee were minded to approve the Pre Submission Draft, the six weeks statutory consultation referred to above, would commence on 17 February 2011 and end on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.