Agenda item

Further to Minute 6 of the meeting of the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee held on 16 July 2019, the Council will decide whether to adopt the Committee’s recommendations made in respect of the above.

NOTE: The Minutes of the Committee meeting are set out within Agenda Item 13 above.

Earlier in the meeting Councillors Stock OBE and G V Guglielmi, as points of information, had informed Council that they were, respectively, a Director and an alternate Director of North Essex Garden Communities Limited.

The Council considered the recommendations submitted to it by the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee in respect of the proposed Additional Sustainability Appraisal, evidence and amendments relating to Section 1 of the Local Plan which it was further proposed should be submitted, together with the responses received from a proposed public consultation thereon, to the Planning Inspector.

Members were aware that the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee had considered this matter at its meeting held on 16 July 2019. The relevant Committee Minute and Officer Reports were contained within the Council Book. 

Councillors Turner, Allen, M E Stephenson and Stock addressed the Council on the subject matter of this item.

It was moved by Councillor Turner and:-

Unanimously RESOLVED that -

a)     the additional evidence base summarised within Appendices 2 to 11 to the report of the Corporate Director (Planning and Regeneration) and available in full as background papers be accepted as part of the evidence base for Section 1 of the submitted Local Plan which contains strategic planning policies and proposals common to the North Essex Authorities of Braintree, Colchester and Tendring;

b)     the findings of the Additional Sustainability Appraisal work (summarised in Appendix 1 to the aforementioned report) which appraises the submitted Local Plan strategy for three cross-border Garden Communities and the reasonable alternatives to such strategy be approved;

c)     the Additional Sustainability Appraisal work and evidence base (including the additional evidence) be endorsed as supporting the existing spatial strategy for growth in the submitted Local Plan proposing three cross-border Garden Communities and that it is justified as being the most appropriate strategy;

d)     the schedule of proposed amendments to the submitted Local Plan (attached as appendix 12 to the above report) be approved;

e)     a six-week public consultation on the schedule of proposed amendments, the Additional Sustainability Appraisal work and the additional evidence base be undertaken, starting on 19 August 2019 and ending on 30 September 2019;

f)      following that period of public consultation, the above-mentioned documents along with any duly made representations received during the public consultation period, be submitted to the Secretary of State in order to enable the Local Plan Inspector to resume and complete the examination of the Section 1 Local Plan; and

g)        the Local Plan Inspector be formally requested to recommend any further modifications to the Publication Draft Local Plan as necessary in order to make it ‘sound’.