In accordance with Chichester District Council’s scheme for public question time as amended by Full Council on 24 September 2019 the Cabinet will receive any questions which have been submitted by members of the public in writing by noon two working days before the meeting. Each questioner will be given up to three minutes to ask their question. The total time allocated for public question time is 15 minutes subject to the Chairman’s discretion to extend that period.
Minutes:
The following public questions were read with the responses indicated in italics:
Question 1 from Mr Kerry-Bedell:
Reviews with our planning consultants Troy, as well as AECOM, and also raised at our meeting with Council Planners on 14th January, show that the Chidham and Hambrook Parish Neighbourhood Plan cannot accommodate it’s Council imposed 500 new house allocation that is currently in the Local Plan. We need guidance on which, and in what priority order, we should decide to A) build new houses in the AONB B) build houses over the new CDC Wildlife corridors or C) build houses outside our agreed settlement boundary, all three options of which contravene the Council’s own policies and development principles.
The following answer was provided by Cllr Taylor:
Thank you for your question. It should be said that the previous proposed allocation of 500 homes in the Preferred Approach Plan was informed by a technical report on land availability in accordance with government guidance. That document identified sites within the parish that were outside the AONB and the proposed wildlife corridors, with a total capacity of 565 dwellings.
Although work undertaken on behalf of the Parish Council has been seen by officers, this does not appear to clearly show that the figure of 500 homes is unachievable.
However, the Parish Council’s concerns relating to the suitability of the proposals in the Preferred Approach Plan for 500 homes in Chidham and Hambrook Parish are noted and were recognised in the report ‘Local Plan Review - Responses to Preferred Approach Consultation and Way Forward’ considered by Council in December 2019. At that time the Council endorsed the statement that further consideration will need to be given to the capacity of this service village to accommodate significant additional development.
I can confirm that work is ongoing to carefully consider the distribution of development across the Local Plan area and a proposed revised option will be brought to District Council members to consider in due course, before being advised to Parish Councils.
Mr Kerry-Bedell was permitted a supplementary question. In relation to the Natural England methods for nitrate neutral house building mitigation he asked for advice with regard to what those working on Neighbourhood Plans should do.
Mrs Taylor explained that there are ongoing discussions with Natural England regarding mitigating the nitrates issue. Mr Frost added that individual parishes are not expected to come up with the solutions at this stage. He confirmed that officers have offered meetings with parish councils to advise further.
Question 2 from Mr Kerry-Bedell:
“CDC should be applauded for confirming Wildlife Corridors in the new Local Plan. However, for the detail required for Neighbourhood Plans, Parishes can’t plan out their housing sites or work out the exact overlaps between many of our housing allocation sites and the Wildlife Corridors. This will require large scale high resolution maps of all five wildlife corridors, together. When will these be made available to all Parishes?”
The following answer was provided by Cllr Taylor:
High resolution maps of the corridors proposed in the Preferred Approach Local Plan can be provided. Further evidence is being gathered to support the identification and confirmation of the wildlife corridors and any amendments to the boundaries will be communicated to parishes in due course.
Mr Kerry-Bedell was permitted to ask a supplementary question regarding the timing and availability of the maps.
Mr Frost explained that the maps can be made available. He clarified that the boundaries may be subject to adjustment which in turn could affect the final boundaries of the wildlife corridors.