Agenda and minutes

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Chapman BEM and Fowler. There were no substitutions.

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting of the Committee, held on Thursday 5 October 2023.

It was RESOLVED that the Minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Thursday 5 October 2023, be approved as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Other Registerable Interests of Non-Registerable Interests, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest made by Members on this occasion.

Subject to providing two working days’ notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

No questions on notice pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 38 had been submitted on this occasion.

The Council’s Public Speaking Scheme for the Local Plan Committee gives the opportunity for members of the public and other interested parties/stakeholders to speak to the Council’s elected members on the Local Plan Committee on any specific agenda item to be considered at that public meeting.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Council’s public speaking scheme for the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee, no member of the public had registered to ask at this meeting a question or to make a statement regarding the matters contained in the reports of the Director (Planning).

To advise the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee of the legal and policy requirements to review Local Plans every five years and to accordingly seek its approval to commence the first mandatory review of the current Tendring District Local Plan. In doing so, this report provides initial advice on the likely scope and timeframe for the Local Plan review, sets out a series of overarching ‘guiding principles’ for the Committee’s consideration and seeks its agreement to carry out an initial ‘call for sites’ consultation exercise in early 2024.

The Committee considered a detailed report of the Director (Planning) (A.1) which advised it of the legal and policy requirements to review Local Plans and accordingly sought its approval to commence the first mandatory review of the current Tendring District Local Plan. In doing so, this report provided initial advice on the likely scope and timeframe for the Local Plan review; set out a series of overarching ‘guiding principles’ for the Committee’s consideration; and sought its agreement to carry out an initial ‘call for sites’ consultation exercise in early 2024.

Members were reminded that legislation required Councils to review and update Local Plans every five years in order to ensure that they remained up-to-date and effective, complied with the latest national policy and were adjusted accordingly to respond to changing circumstances. Failure to keep a Local Plan up-to-date could, and did, result in Councils losing control of planning decisions, particularly if they had begun to fall behind on housing land supply and the delivery of new homes.

The Committee recalled that the ‘Tendring District Local Plan 2013-2033 and Beyond’ had been formally adopted by the Council in two sections – Section 1 in January 2021 and Section 2 in January 2022. Therefore, this Council’s Local Plan would need to be reviewed and updated by January 2026; i.e. within five-years of adopting the Section 1 Local Plan.

Members were made aware that the Government was proposing significant changes to the system for producing Local Plans through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 which were designed to streamline and speed up the plan-making process but also to simplify the content of Local Plans and reduce the amount of detail contained within local policies. However, there was a ‘transition period’ within which Councils could still progress a Local Plan review under the current arrangements so long as the updated Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State by June 2025.

The timetable for reviewing the Local Plan under the current system was therefore very tight, however Officers considered it both necessary and prudent to commence the review of the Local Plan under the transitional arrangements in order to avoid a situation by which the Council found itself with an out-of-date Local Plan come 2026. Another advantage of progressing the Local Plan review under the current arrangements was that the Council could extend the life of the Local Plan through a focussed update of its policies and proposals, rather than having to re-write the Plan from ‘scratch’.

With that approach in mind, and to assist in scoping out the work required to review the Local Plan, Officers had undertaken a preliminary assessment of all the Policies in the current Local Plan in order to identify where amendments and updates might need to be considered in response to changes in national policy or legislation, changes on the ground (for example, where developments had been built), or where practical issues had arisen in the application of certain policies in the determination of planning applications.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

To report to the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee:

·      The findings of the most recently updated Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) including:

o  The number of new homes built in Tendring during the 2021/22 financial year and the up-dated year-by-year ‘trajectory’ for future housebuilding; and

o  The current housing land supply position (the ‘five-year’ supply).

·      The findings of the Authorities Monitoring Report (AMR), which monitors the key indicators set out in the adopted Local Plan.

The Committee considered a detailed report of the Director (Planning) (A.2) which reported to it:-

(1)    the findings of the most recently updated Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) including:

(i)  the number of new homes built in Tendring during the 2022/23 financial year and the up-dated year-by-year ‘trajectory’ for future housebuilding; and

(ii) the current housing land supply position (the ‘five-year’ supply).

(2)    the findings of the Authority’s Monitoring Report (AMR), which monitored the key indicators set out in the adopted Local Plan.

Housing Supply Position

Housing Requirement

The Committee was aware that Section 1 of the Local Plan set out the ‘objectively assessed housing need’ (OAN) for Tendring of 550 homes a year, and that the housing requirement for the period of the Local Plan 2013-2033 was therefore 11,000 homes. With approximately 5,850 homes already built between 2013 and 2023, the remaining requirement between now and 2033 stood at approximately 5,150 and the historic shortfall in housing delivery had now been addressed. Officers felt that there was sufficient land allocated for housing development in the adopted Local Plan, along with sites that already had planning permission, to comfortably achieve the District’s housing requirement up to 2033 without the need to consider the release of additional sites. The Council would however, as part of the mandatory five-year Local Plan review, revisit the housing requirement in order to comply with the latest national planning policies and to meet longer-term needs over the rolled-forward plan period.

Housing Completions and Future Trajectory

It was reported that in the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, a total of 810 (net) new homes had been completed within the District. This meant that the housebuilding target of 550 homes a year had now been achieved for a seventh year in succession.

Officers had updated the Council’s ‘Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment’ (SHLAA) which contained a trajectory for future housing building up to 2033. Information from developers as well as Officers’ own monitoring of building sites had informed the forecast for the coming years.

Five Year Housing Supply and Decision Making

Members were aware that the Government required Councils to demonstrate an ongoing ‘five year supply’ of deliverable housing sites in order to ensure that they were well placed to meet their future housing needs.

Taking into account the future trajectory set out in the SHLAA, it was the opinion of Officers that the Council could demonstrate a 6.44 year supply of deliverable housing sites. Around 3,700 homes were expected to be built within the five years 2023/24 – 2027/28, against a five-year requirement of approximately 2,900 homes. This meant that the Council remained in a strong position to resist speculative and unwanted housing developments that fell outside of the settlement development boundaries set out within the Local Plan unless there were material benefits that might exceptionally justify a departure from Local Plan policy.

Authority’s Monitoring Report

The Committee was informed that, following the first full financial year since the adoption of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

To seek the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee’s approval of the updated Statement of Community Involvement.

The Committee considered a detailed report of the Director (Planning) (A.3) which sought its approval of the updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). The SCI detailed the way in which the public would be consulted on all planning matters. Therefore, there was an expectation that SCIs would be reviewed regularly, in order to ensure that they remained up-to-date and contained appropriate measures for engaging with the community.

Members recalled that the SCI had been updated in 2017 in order to allow for the preparation of the Garden Community Development Plan Document (DPD) and again in 2020 in order to incorporate the amended consultation requirements which the Government had introduced as part of their broader legislative package in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

It was reported that Officers had now reviewed the Council’s adopted SCI in advance of the Local Plan review commencing and they had proposed only minor changes to ensure that it was consistent with the most recent guidance and good practice. The updated SCI itself was required to be the subject of public consultation, and it was proposed that this would take place early in 2024 in order to enable the updated document to be adopted before the statutory consultation began on the Local Plan review.

The Senior Planning Policy Officer (Will Fuller) introduced this item and responded to Members’ questions thereon.

It was moved by Councillor M Cossens, seconded by Councillor Fairley and unanimously:-

RESOLVED that the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee –

(a)    agrees the recommended revisions to the Council’s Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) (as shown in Appendix 1 to report A.3) to reflect the specific requirements arising from national guidance, and

(b)    authorises the Director (Planning) to publish the updated SCI on the Council’s website for public consultation for a period of six weeks.