Agenda item

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. Initial consideration had also been given to the technical and background evidence that might need to be updated and reviewed to ensure the Local Plan continued to be based on robust and proportionate evidence – having regard to the cost and necessity of studies and assessments. 

Officers had also developed a set of overarching ‘guiding principles’ for the Committee’s consideration which were designed to provide an initial focus and direction for the Local Plan review, but which could be kept under review in their own right as work progressed.

Members were informed that the indicative timetable for progressing the Local Plan review through the key stages of the plan-making process, as set out in the main body of this report, would be reported back to the Committee in greater detail in early 2024, as part of an updated ‘Local Development Scheme (LDS) document’.

The Committee was advised that, in reviewing and rolling forward the timescale of the Local Plan to 2041 or beyond, there would be a need to consider the requirement for further housing and employment land and other forms of development and to make provision for additional land for those purposes. Whilst it was anticipated that some of the developments in the current Local Plan (particularly the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community and the Hartley Gardens development in Clacton) would contribute to meeting the longer-term requirements, there was likely still to be a residual requirement (yet to be determined) that would require further land allocations.

To help inform the Council’s consideration of potential options and the availability of land across the District for different forms of development, Officers had recommended the carrying out of an initial ‘call for sites’ consultation exercise in early 2024. This would be a focussed consultation, targeted mainly at landowners, developers and planning agents (but open to others) to invite proposals and suggestions for housing and mixed-use developments of different scales or commercial development as well as any community-led or environmental-led proposals for community facilities, habitat creation or open space.

The Committee also had before it an Update Sheet prepared by Planning Officers and circulated prior to the commencement of the meeting which summarised the key issues and changes made contained within the new version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published by the Government on 19 December 2023. This meant that all subsequent work to review and update the Local Plan would need to be undertaken in accordance with the most recent NPPF. References to NPPF paragraph numbers in the report appendices could now be out-of-date and would be reviewed by Officers in due course.

The Director (Planning) (Gary Guiver) gave a comprehensive oral presentation of the report and its appendices with a particular focus on the newly published NPPF and the guiding principles for the review of the Local Plan, as set out in Appendix 1 to report A.1. Mr Guiver then responded to Members’ questions thereon.

At the invitation of the Chairman, the Housing & Planning Portfolio Holder (Councillor Baker) commented on the contents of the report A.1.

Having duly taken all of the above information into account and having discussed the matter:-

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

RESOLVED that the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee –

a)     notes the requirement for the Councils to review their Local Plan every five years, the changes that Government may introduce to the plan-making system and the potential implications for the District of Tendring, as explained in report A.1;

b)     authorises Officers to commence the mandatory five-year review  of the Tendring District Local Plan under the current plan-making system with the aim of submission to the Secretary of State by June 2025 and adoption by January 2026;

c)      having considered the overarching ‘guiding principles’ set out in report A.1, agrees that these should underpin the focus and approach for the Local Plan review, but that these principles shall themselves be kept under review as work progresses;

d)     notes that an updated Local Development Scheme, setting out more detail of the proposed timetable for the Local Plan review and the associated evidence base, will be brought to the Committee for approval in early 2024; and

e)     authorises the Director (Planning) to run an initial ‘call for sites’ consultation exercise in early 2024, inviting landowners, developers, planning agents and others to put forward sites, ideas and proposals for the Council’s consideration as options as part of the Local Plan review process.