The material relevant to this item is the report and update sheet on pages 1 to 18 in the agenda and its four appendices on pages 1 to 274 of the agenda supplement which are to be considered by the Cabinet at its special meeting on Wednesday 14 November 2018.
Chichester District Council members have not been issued with a hard copy of the agenda supplement since its contents were circulated to them in the confidential agenda for the meeting of the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel on Thursday 1 November 2018. They are requested to bring those confidential agenda papers with them to this meeting.
Having regard to para 2.1 of the agenda report but subject to the outcome of the Cabinet’s special meeting, it is anticipated that the Council will be asked to approve the following recommendation:
RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL
(1) That the Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach document (attached as appendix 2 to the cabinet agenda report) and the schedule of proposed changes to the policies map (attached as appendix 3) be approved for an eight-week consultation from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019.
(2) That the Director for Planning and the Environment be authorised, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services, to make minor amendments to the consultation documents prior to their publication.
Minutes:
The Council considered the recommendation made to it by the Cabinet at its special meeting on Wednesday 14 November 2018, with regard to the Cabinet report (pages 1 to 18 of the Cabinet agenda), its appendices (pages 1 to 274 of the agenda supplement), the revised version in the sixth agenda supplement of the agenda report update sheet, and the (first) agenda supplement for this meeting in which an amended version of para (1) of the Cabinet’s recommendation was set out (para (2) was unchanged).
Mrs S Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) formally moved the Cabinet’s amended recommendation and this was seconded by Mr A Dignum (Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Growth and Place).
Mrs Taylor presented the Cabinet’s amended recommendation as follows. CDC currently had an adopted Local Plan but was committed to reviewing it by July 2020 to ensure that the development needs of the Local Plan area were addressed in accordance with national planning policy. The Local Plan Review would be for 2020 to 2035 and would cover the Chichester District area outside the South Downs National Park (SDNP). Work on the evidence base to inform the Local Plan Review had been ongoing for the past two years. Appendix 4 to the report set out the evidence base already published together with future dates of publication. The Local Plan area’s housing need was based on the government’s current proposed methodology and was capped at an increase of 40% of the figure in the existing Chichester Local Plan (CLP), resulting in a housing need figure of 12,350 new dwellings over the plan period ie 609 dwellings plus 41 dwellings per annum to accommodate the unmet housing need of the SDNP within the CLP area, namely a total of 650 dwellings per annum. The Chichester Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach (CLPRPA) had two parts. Part one set out some of the key planning issues and challenges together with the preferred spatial strategies to meet the needs of the Chichester Local Plan.
It proposed inter alia specific sites for development. A majority of the planned growth would be in the east-west corridor including Chichester city, with more moderate development for the Manhood Peninsular and in the north of the District. In addition, provision for new employment floor-space was proposed equating to over 230,000 m2 for the plan period. Part two of the CLPRPA comprised development management policies, which provided greater detail with respect to, for example, design, heritage, housing mix/tenure and landscape considerations. If approved by the Council, the CLPRPA would be published for consultation for a period of eight weeks from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019. The Revised Local Development Scheme (the next agenda item at this special meeting) set out the timetable for taking the CLPRPA through to adoption, which self-evidently was very tight. Failure to proceed to consultation on the CLPRPA would be likely to result in the extant CLP becoming out-of-date with its serious consequences. The proposed consultation would afford an opportunity for the community to engage in a positive and constructive way to ensure that the development that took place was planned, and not speculative and unplanned with a lack of control over infrastructure, design and location, as was experienced prior to the adoption of the current CLP. The need for and commitment to new housing was recognised by all of the main political parties ie 300,000 new dwellings per annum. The best way to ensure that the unique qualities of this very beautiful part of the country were preserved was for CDC to ensure that it had an up-to-date Local Plan. She commended the Cabinet’s recommendation in its amended form.
During the Council’s debate members discussed the draft CLPRPA and asked questions and made comments on points of detail, which were answered by officers where required. A summary of the contributions follows but for the full debate recourse should be made to the audio recording on CDC’s website via this link:
http://chichester.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=132&MId=923&Ver=4
Mr G Barrett (West Wittering) asked three questions:
· With regard to the housing delivery figures and Policy S4: Meeting Housing Needs, there appeared to be a discrepancy between the numbers in the draft CLPRPA 2016-2035 and the objectively assessed need for housing 2016-2019 and 2019-2035 (detailed figures were cited) and if it was the case that there were to be more houses provided than currently required, could there be a review of the number of houses being proposed for the Manhood Peninsula?
Mr A Frost (Director of Planning and Environment) would discuss the details of this point with Mr Barrett outside this meeting but he was satisfied that the housing numbers in the CLPRPA were correct.
· Would the minimum number of homes to be delivered by the CLPRPA be reckoned from 1 April 2016?
Mrs Taylor confirmed that this was the correct date.
· With reference to Policy SA6: Land South-West of Chichester (Apuldram and Donnington Parishes) (page 119 of the main agenda supplement), why were Donnington and Apuldram no longer considered to be part of the Manhood Peninsula?
Mrs Taylor said that this was simply a description of where the two parishes were located. There was an opportunity during the consultation to suggest an alternative geographical description.
Mr S Oakley (Tangmere) made a statement and the following points were included:
· An eight-week consultation period was needed given the challenging size of and the detail in the draft CLPRPA document.
· As central government had imposed for various policy and practical reasons high housing figures and the calculation methodology, CDC had to meet the target and conduct the review imposed by the planning inspector, not least to avoid the planning by appeal jeopardy of not having a five-year housing land supply. The proposed distribution of additional housing was the least damaging option in this scenario.
· The proposed scale of annual targets was of an order not hitherto experienced in this area. Achieving estate design and housing build quality would be under threat.
· The considerable increase in pitch requirements in Policy S7 reflected how legislation allowed preferential treatment for certain elements of the population.
· Infrastructure: (a) wastewater was not an absolute constraint as Southern Water had a duty to serve new development and would build eventually what was necessary; (b) local roads would become more congested as there was not sufficient funding to resolve every need or desire; (c) since (i) the CLPRPA would only mitigate the impact of new development on the A27 Chichester bypass and would not address existing congestion issues and (ii) the funds required for the A27 improvements would not be available until at least the late 2020s, by which time there would have been a further review of the Local Plan, the case for a complete re-alignment of the Chichester A27 under RIS 2 was self-evident; (d) the CLPRPA’s sustainable transport infrastructure provision was too aspirational and needed to be expressed in more robust terms; (e) air quality concerns were addressed in the CLPRPA but the problem ultimately required more restrictive national and international emission standards and alternatively powered vehicles.
· Mitigation of the environmental impacts of the proposed development: the wildlife corridors policy, the undertaking given at the Cabinet’s special meeting to ensure the enabling of local green spaces would be in the CLPRPA submission version of this plan and the intention to introduce countryside gaps were all to be welcomed. It was also pleasing that looking beyond the CLPRPA the Strategic Planning Board would be considering green belt designations.
· Significant reduction in open space standards for developments over 200 dwellings: this was a cause for concern as with those new standards such large developments would be very urban in character, quite out of keeping with the general pattern of development in the CLP area; drainage ponds, for example, were not usable amenity open spaces.
Mr J Brown (Southbourne) made three points:
· Although Mrs Taylor said that the three main national political parties supported the housing numbers, it was Liberal Democrat policy to have ten new garden cities.
This was noted by Mrs Taylor.
· Why were some wildlife corridors removed from the CLPRPA?
Mr M Allgrove (Planning Policy Manager) explained that officers had examined the evidence for wildlife corridors and four were in the CLPRPA. If others were suggested during the consultation, the merits of those would be considered by officers.
· In order to (a) counter the suspicion felt by the public about the A27 Chichester mitigation measures and the credibility of the transport study and (b) safeguard land for the A27 northern route and a full southern route, the CLPRPA should refer to the A27 RIS2 upgrade and state that A27 mitigation would not be pursued until the RIS2 outcome was known.
Mr Frost said that the A27 was a complicated issue and it was important that the CLPRPA sent a clear message to the community that what was sought was a government - and not a local plan-funded scheme. The funding situation currently remained uncertain and in July 2020 (when the Chichester Local Plan Review was due to be adopted) it would not be known if there would be RIS2 funding for the A27 Chichester bypass. The interface between RIS2 and local plan funding was complicated. Land could not be safeguarded for A27 upgrading in the absence of a preferred route. There were frequent meetings between officers and their counterparts at West Sussex County Council Highways and Highways England. In the meantime mitigation measures were required as developments came on stream, for example Shopwyke Lakes.
Mr R Plowman (Chichester West) commended Policy DM1: Specialist Housing. He was very pleased that there was for example protection for care homes. He would have liked to see it extended to include the provision of retirement villages. He was concerned about how to secure delivery by developers of housing for which they had been granted planning permission but which was not then built: the government needed to address what was a broken system.
Mrs Taylor said that his second point had already been raised with the MP for Chichester.
Mrs P Plant (Bosham) referred to a number of uncertainties affecting the CLPRPA, such as A27 funding, the calculation of housing numbers and the current restrictions on the Apuldram Wastewater Treatment Works in relation to the employment-led development proposal in Policy SA6: Land South-West of Chichester (Apuldram and Donnington Parishes). Since the extensive documentation associated with the CLPRPA had only been made available to CDC members since 1 November 2018 (via the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel (DPIP) agenda) and there had been many changes made since then, she wondered if the agenda papers for the meetings of the DPIP, the special Cabinet and the Council had been released prematurely.
Mrs Taylor acknowledged the considerable amount of material, which officers had been preparing for two years, but there had been sufficient time since publication to members to review the papers.
Mr J F Elliott (Bury) asked if the 400m buffer around the Goodwood Motor Circuit was inviolable and what scope there was, for example via community land trusts (CLTs), for providing accommodation for elderly people in the countryside.
Mrs Taylor confirmed that the buffer was a policy default position. Mr Allgrove advised that CLTs could be a means for bringing forward affordable housing (but no other type) in the countryside.
Mr K Martin (East Wittering) referred to the A27 mitigation measures in the transport study produced by Peter Brett Associates (PBA), the estimated cost of which could clearly not be met solely from developers’ contributions, and the level of traffic increase by 2050 forecast by a Department for Transport study. He asked if the PBA study had comprehended the impact of this very significant increase in traffic per se and as a result of development.
Mr Dignum (Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Growth and Place) said that PBA had only been commissioned to consider the changes to the highway network which were needed to deal solely with additional housing and so the CLPRPA highway proposals were no substitute for the eventual A27 northern or fully upgraded southern route. The road improvement costs estimated by PBA would clearly not be met in their entirety by developers and so government funding would also be required, for example from the Housing Infrastructure Fund; without the required funding for mitigation measures, the housing could not be provided. Mr Frost said that the PBA costs estimate related only to the quantum of construction costs as at this date and that it was necessary to secure other funding too.
Mrs P Tull (Sidlesham) commented on the proposed housing allocations for the parishes of Hunston and North Mundham. She questioned the rationale for the changes to the original housing allocations for the two settlements of 125 houses each so that now Hunston would take an additional 75 houses and North Mundham would be reduced to 50. Was this new proposed allocation within the range of numbers expected to come forward in the emerging Hunston neighbourhood development plan (NDP)? Hunston had made a very valid point in objecting to a further 200 homes in addition to the original allocation of 571 ie a 35% increase which was a huge change for the parish, even if the impact was mitigated by the promised infrastructure and community facilities (para 6.76 of the CLPRPA).
Mr Frost outlined the process which had led to the proposed housing allocations for Hunston and North Mundham. He acknowledged Hunston Parish Council’s concerns and said that the issue could be revisited in the light of the representations made by each parish council during the consultation.
Mr R Hayes (Southbourne) commended the hard work by officers in producing the CLPRPA. He said that it would be interesting to read the consultation responses about the impact on the A259 (and the A27) of the additional 1,250 homes proposed for the parish.
Mr J Ransley (Wisborough Green):
· Sought and received from Mrs Taylor an assurance that all comments made during the consultation would receive parity of treatment and be given due and equal consideration.
· Asked what would happen to the 41 houses to be taken by CDC on behalf of the South Downs National Park Authority if the CLPRPA was not adopted and in that case which authority would be responsible for delivering them.
Mr Allgrove advised that those 41 houses would remain as unmet need for which there would be no mechanism for delivery.
· It was noticeable that the proposed allocation of development for the north of Chichester District was not dispersed but focused on one village, which undermined the credibility of the CLPRPA as a whole and he hoped that this would be addressed post-consultation. He also wondered if the point had been reached of the planning system having become dysfunctional and councils were reduced to implementing central government edicts.
Mrs Taylor said that housing allocation depended on land availability and parishes could comment on this during the consultation. She noted his observation.
Mrs C Apel (Chichester West) pointed out that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee which she chaired had advocated the need for Chichester District Council to deploy more user-friendly consultation software and asked if this would be done.
Mr Allgrove replied that after the cancellation of the previous contract and the trial of new software, in which members had been involved, it was hoped that it would meet with users’ approval.
During the debate, which is summarised above, Mr A Moss (Fishbourne and Leader of the Opposition) made the following points and a proposal to amend the draft CLPRPA:
(1) The consultation period included the Christmas 2018 and New Year 2019 festive holiday period and in view of that the consultation should be extended to the end of February 2019.
(2) CLPRPA Policies S21: Health and Wellbeing and S23: Transport and Accessibility did not make sufficient provision for cycle routes.
(3) With respect to CLPRPA Policies S16: Development within Vicinity of Goodwood Motor Circuit and Airfield, SA4: Land at Westhampnett/North East Chichester and, in particular, SA6: Land South-West of Chichester (Apuldram and Donnington Parishes), it was of great concern to him and others that sites within the Lavant flood plain were being proposed for possible development. The land the subject of Policy SA6 was very close to the AONB, which included very important wildlife sites. The employment and housing uses of this land would damage the community and the construction of a road which (for flood risk reasons) would have to be raised would have a major impact on views from Chichester Harbour, especially looking towards Chichester Cathedral. There was a need to look again especially at Policy SA6 and for the site to be removed from the CLPRPA and allocated to the areas the subject of Policies S16: Development within Vicinity of Goodwood Motor Circuit and Airfield and SA4: Land at Westhampnett/North East Chichester. Development in that area would enhance Goodwood Airport and be consistent with the employment use at Rolls Royce, and insofar as residential development was concerned appropriate visual and noise screening could be provided.
(4) Other important issues in the CLPRPA included housing mix, transport and cycling.
In reply, Mrs Taylor and Mr A Frost explained:
· That the intervening Christmas holiday period had been taken into account by extending the usual six-week consultation period to eight weeks; to change the Policy SA6 and to extend the consultation period would put at risk achieving what was already a very tight timetable.
· The suggestion that the employment use proposed in Policy SA6 could instead be reallocated to land south of the Goodwood Motor Circuit and Airfield was not viable because of flood risk and landscape sensitivity vis-à-vis the SDNP. The area of land in Policy SA6 was about 85ha, which was far more than was needed for the proposed employment and housing and so was capable of being developed appropriately. There had been no discussions with the Goodwood Estate about Mr Moss’ proposal and it was not possible to say if such an allocation would be suitable, appropriate and deliverable.
Nevertheless Mr Moss formally proposed that the 85ha of land south-west of Chichester for employment-led development should be removed from Policy SA6 and reallocated to elsewhere including the area adjacent to Goodwood Airfield. He had long held the view that the site proposed in policy SA6 was inappropriate for development.
Mrs C Apel (Chichester West) seconded Mr Moss’ proposal.
Mr J Ridd (Donnington) said that he would also have liked to have seconded Mr Moss’ proposal, whose concern about this site he shared. He also expressed his concern that the draft CLPRPA was very much work in progress and so to consult on it now would be premature.
Mrs Taylor repeated that any delay could be seriously prejudicial to the timetable and risk CDC no longer having a five-year housing land supply with the consequences of planning decisions by appeal and a loss of the government’s housing numbers cap.
Mr Dignum noted Mr Moss’ points but said cognisance should be taken of the severe timetable constraints and so rather than delay matters, objections to Policy SA6 could and should be submitted during the consultation and these would be carefully considered by officers.
Mr Dignum’s response was supported by Mr Oakley and Mr L Hixson (Chichester East).
The Vice-Chairman of the Council then called for a vote by a show of hands on Mr Moss’ proposal, which was supported by six members, with a clear majority against it and four abstentions. The proposal was not, therefore, carried.
In concluding the debate Mr Dignum made the following remarks:
The government inspector in approving the CLP in 2015 laid down that a full review had to be completed by 2020, in particular a review of the housing numbers. The CLP laid down a figure of 435 houses per annum within the Local Plan area. The current government formula laid down a figure 40% higher than that, namely 609 houses per annum (hpa) for the Local Plan Review. In addition the South Downs National Park Authority had asked CDC to provide up to 41 hpa. Thus the Local Plan Review would have to identify deliverable sites providing in total up to 650 hpa. It should be clearly understood that the housing numbers were imposed by central government and whatever it felt about the figures, CDC had no choice in the matter and had to fit the numbers into the required locations.
The choices of locations had to avoid the SDNP and the Chichester Harbour Area of Outstanding Beauty, the worst flood zones and take account of the poor access to and from the Manhood Peninsula.
It had to be assumed that no major scheme on the A27 would be having an impact during the period up to the next Local Plan review due in 2025.
All of these constraints meant that the Manhood would be asked to take a far smaller proportion of new homes namely 16% than its share of population might suggest. If new housing over the new plan period had been allocated in proportion to population, the Manhood would receive twice as many homes, namely 33% of the Local Plan Review total. Housing allocations to specific towns and parishes were rarely received with acclamation but CDC members needed to agree a local plan which would deliver an annual number of homes fixed by the government. It had to be grasped that when a housing figure went down in one area, then somewhere else would need to accept a higher figure in order to balance the books and deliver the Local Plan total.
Another major issue was the Local Plan Review’s relationship with the A27. In preparing the document officers had to assume that there would be no major scheme implemented by Highways England before another plan review was due in 2025. However, CDC was required to arrange plans to be prepared to offset the impact of new development on the A27 and local roads. In the absence of a major Highways England scheme, there was no alternative to making relatively minor at grade improvements to the existing A27. This did not mean that CDC was embracing any of the Highways England 2016 options for the existing A27 but it did mean that CDC had to calculate the impact of the new housing that was planned and devise proposals to offset its impact on the whole highways network.
In summary, CDC had to ensure it had a new adopted Local Plan by 2020 or confront the risk of uncontrolled development on any site not included in the current CLP and developers making only a minimal contribution to the necessary infrastructure.
Accordingly, he commended the making to the Council of the two-fold recommendation.
On behalf of Mrs Taylor and for himself, he thanked CDC’s planning policy team, led by Mr Allgrove, for all its good work, which had resulted in 274 pages of the draft CLPRPA for the proposed consultation. The Council assented to these words of appreciation with warm applause.
Decision
On a show of hands the members voted in favour of the Cabinet’s amended recommendation with no votes against and three abstentions.
[Note (i) The Council voted initially on the Cabinet’s recommendation in its original form as set out in the Council agenda and the result was as stated above. (ii) Following the short adjournment recorded below, and before proceeding to agenda item 13, the Council was asked to vote again for the avoidance of doubt on para (1) in its revised form as set out in the (first) agenda supplement (para (2) was unchanged and so was not the subject of a further vote) and the result was again as stated above and as set out below.]
RESOLVED
(1) That the Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach document (attached as appendix 2 to the Cabinet agenda report), as amended in the sixth agenda supplement, and the schedule of proposed changes to the policies map (attached as appendix 3) be approved for an eight-week consultation from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019.
(2) That the Director for Planning and the Environment be authorised, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services, to make minor amendments to the consultation documents prior to their publication.
[Note After the end of this item there was a short adjournment from 16:37 to 16:52]