The East Devon Local Plan is back in the headlines...again. This time
it re-emerges having been considered by Mr Thickett the Planning Inspector. So,
now there is a new villain to add to the mix of (the majority group of) East Devon
District Council Councillors and Officers!
The Local Plan and the Planning Inspector’s views on it have now been
published by EDDC ahead of their consideration by the Council at its meeting on
28 January. The details of the Local Plan & the Planning Inspector’s report
were published on 19 January via this link –
http://eastdevon.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/emerging-plans-and-policies/the-new-local-plan/local-plan-adoption/.
For ease the main reports are accessible here –
Final
Report on the Examination of the Local Plan (26
page Inspector’s report);
Main
Modifications (99 page set of
amendments to the Local Plan);
new clean base copy of the plan
text (264
page original version of the Local Plan that the Main Modifications relate to).
In the email notification
that Zorro received from the kind
Planning Policy Manger at EDDC he introduced the main issues associated with
the Local Plan, which has in part been amended by the Planning Inspector, by
saying –
“The Inspector concludes that the Local Plan is sound subject to ‘main
modifications’, details of which can be viewed with copies of the report. Key
matters highlighted in the Inspector’s report, that relates to the plan as
submitted for examination and includes main modifications, include that:
a)
the
plan should cover the 2013 to 2031 period;
b)
it is
appropriate for the plan to provide for 17,100 new homes over this time period
– this equates to 950 per year;
c)
the
strategy for distribution of development, with a focus on the West End, is
appropriate;
d)
the
Council can show a five year housing land supply;
e)
the
plan makes appropriate provision for affordable housing;
f)
the
plan makes appropriate provision for jobs growth (noting links between job
growth and housing provision);
g)
the
plan provides for protection of the natural environment and highlights
that habitat mitigation is critical in respect of accommodating housing
growth;
h)
the
Sidford employment land allocation should remain in the plan;
i)
residential
development at the Council offices site (at the Knowle) is appropriate as is
the allocation boundary;
j)
the
plan should provide for gypsies and travellers at Cranbrook;
k)
Chardstock
and Dunkeswell should not feature in Strategy 27 of the plan; they should not
be identified as villages to have a Built-up Area Boundary;
l)
Land
should not be safeguarded for a rail head at the Intermodal Interchange site.
Adoption of the Local Plan is due to be considered at a meeting of the
Full Council on 28th January 2016”.
Local press coverage has cranked up again on this matter with the
Sidmouth Herald giving it a high degree of prominence in last Friday’s (22
January) edition, as did the Express & Echo at the weekend.
https://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/22.1.16SidmouthHerald.pdf
Zorro wonders whether Mr
Thickett was given a poor hand to play with. Surely, the starting point for any
criticism over the Local plan rests at the door of the Knowle (something that can’t say that for too much
longer!). Here the ultimate criticism must rest with the previous EDDC administration
(oh! the same people are still in
charge!) for submitting a Local Plan that did not have the vision that
their electors had or wanted.
Mr Thickett therefore in part was in a very difficult position e.g.
Paragraphs 88 – 95 Sidford (Employment); one created by EDDC. These paragraphs
related to the proposals for a Business Park in Sidford; something that Sid
Valley residents are very concerned and unhappy about, still.
Paragraph 88 of the Inspector’s report makes it clear to Zorro that EDDC knew that its decision
to vote to exclude the Sidford Business Park from the Local Plan, so late in
the day, was not going to be upheld by the Inspector.
“The Local Plan proposes the
allocation of 5 ha of land on the northern edge of
Sidford for employment use. At
a meeting on 26 March 2015 the Council
resolved to delete this
allocation from the Local Plan. However, the allocation
was part of the plan submitted
for examination and following submission for
examination the Council cannot
make any further changes to the Local Plan.
Any further changes can only come about through a recommendation made in
this report. As stated above the starting point for the examination is
the
assumption that the Council has submitted what it considers to be a
sound
plan. The Council considered the allocation to be sound when the plan
was
submitted for examination and it defended the allocation at the Hearing
in
February 2014. No new evidence has been submitted by the Council to
support its volte face”.
Zorro is cynical enough to believe that Clr
Diviani & the Conservative majority on EDDC knew what they were doing when
they, at the eleventh minute, excluded the Business Park from the Local Plan.
They thought that with local elections coming up in May 2015 that in order to
look as if they were being responsive to the vocal local concerns about the sitting
of the Business Park they agreed to exclude it from the Plan.
In so doing they knew full well what the Inspector has now said – surely
the inclusion must have been deemed “sound” enough to be included in the Plan
by EDDC and when it defended the Plan in February 2014. And without any “new
evidence has been submitted by the Council to support its volte face”
how or why could the inspector overturn the original decision.
Bravo Clr Diviani et al! A
great piece of political skulduggery! You tried to look like the good guys and
now the Inspector is to be seen as the bad guy!! A plot straight of the satirical
political tv show “The Thick of IT”.
It seems to Zorro that the Local Plan puts local
politics and democracy back on the front page. The question now is how will
electors react? Will it be in the same way as reported in the Sidmouth Herald
headline this week said ...”the future’s
looking considerably brighter”. Or will it be more in the vein of the
Letters page in this week’s Sidmouth Herald?
https://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/22.1.16SidmouthHeraldLetters.pdf
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