a)    To report the findings of the Local Plan Inspector as to the legal compliance and ‘soundness’ of the Section 1 Local Plan for North Essex following the further examination hearings of January 2020 and receipt of his latest letter dated 15 May 2020. 

b)    To note the next steps of the plan-making process required to make the plan ‘sound’ including consultation on the Local Plan Inspector’s recommended ‘modifications’; and  

c)    To highlight any implications of the Inspector’s findings for the content and next steps for progressing both the Section 2 Local Plan which contains planning policies and proposals specific to Tendring and the ‘Development Plan Document’ (DPD) which will set out more detailed parameters for the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community.

Councillor C Guglielmi  had earlier declared an interest in relation to Agenda Item 7 – Report A.1- Section 1 Local Plan: Planning Inspector's Post-Hearing Letter and in relation to Agenda Item 8 – Report A.2 - Colchester Tendring Borders Garden Community - Development Plan Document as he was an alternate director for the NEGC.

The Committee had before it a comprehensive report (and appendices) of the Corporate Director (Place and Economy) (A.1) which reported:-

a)       the findings of the Local Plan Inspector as to the legal compliance and ‘soundness’ of the Section 1 Local Plan for North Essex followed the further examination hearings of January 2020 and receipt of his latest letter dated 15 May 2020.

b)      the next steps of the plan-making process required to make the plan ‘sound’ including consultation on the Local Plan Inspector’s recommended ‘modifications’

c)       highlighted any implications of the Inspector’s findings for the content and next steps for progressing both the Section 2 Local Plan which contained planning policies and proposals specific to Tendring and the ‘Development Plan Document’ (DPD) which would set out more detailed parameters for the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community.

Key Points

 · Following further examination hearings held in January 2020, the Planning Inspector had issued a further ‘post-hearing letter’ to the North Essex Authorities on the shared Section of the Braintree, Colchester and Tendring Local Plans.

· The Inspector had concluded that two of the three proposed Garden Communities (the Colchester Braintree Borders Garden Community and West of Braintree Garden Community) were not viable or deliverable and therefore the Section 1 Local Plan, in its current form, was not sound.

· The Inspector had however agreed that the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community was viable and deliverable and the housing and revised employment targets in the Local Plan were also sound, including the requirement of 550 homes a year in Tendring.

· In the event that a Local Plan was found not to be sound, the Inspector must, if asked to do so by the local planning authority, recommend modifications to the Local Plan that would make it sound. The Council requested that through its previous decisions.

· The Inspector gave the North Essex Authorities two options for how to proceed:

1)      consultation on the main modifications to remove the Colchester Braintree Borders and West of Braintree Garden Communities from the Local Plan and other necessary ‘modifications’;

2)      or 2) withdraw the plan.

· To continue with the Draft Local Plan the first option of consulting on the main modifications suggested must be undertook, otherwise the alternative position is that the Plan was withdrawn from examination and the Council would be required to start again. All three of the North Essex Authorities (Tendring, Braintree and Colchester) would need to come to the same conclusion.

Background

The Committee was informed that section 1 of the submitted Local Plan (‘the Section 1 Plan’) set out an overarching strategy for future growth across Braintree, Colchester and Tendring – the ‘North Essex Authorities’ (‘NEAs’). It included policies setting the overall housing and employment requirements for North Essex up to 2033, the Section 1 Plan proposed three new cross-boundary ‘Garden Communities’ along the A120 corridor with the potential for longer-term and comprehensively-planned growth. In contrast, ‘the Section 2 Plan’ for each of the three authorities contained more specific local policies and proposals relevant only to their individual area. Before a Local Plan could be formally adopted by a Council, it must be examined by a government-appointed Inspector whose job it is to check that

1)      the plan had been prepared in line with various legal requirements 

2)      that the policies and proposals in the plan comply with the ‘tests of soundness’ contained within the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Examination hearings for the Section 1 Plan first took place between January and May 2018; and in June 2018 the Inspector wrote to the North Essex Authorities highlighting concerns about the evidence and justification in support of the three Garden Communities. In response to the 2018 letter, the NEAs confirmed their commitment to, and would continue to promote, Garden Communities as part of a long-term strategy for growth and would therefore undertake further work on the evidence base, including an Additional Sustainability Appraisal, aimed at satisfying the Inspector’s concerns.

A significant number of technical documents were prepared, considered and endorsed by the NEAs that included a meeting of this Council’s Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee on 16th June 2019. The documents were then published for six weeks consultation before being submitted to the Inspector who then held a number of further examination hearings in January 2020 at which  the Inspector examined and scrutinised the new evidence which enabled him to reach some final conclusions on the legal compliance and soundness of the Section 1 Plan.

Findings

Members heard that on 15 May 2020, the NEAs received a letter from the Inspector setting out his findings. The Inspector had concluded that, in its current form, the Section 1 Local Plan did not meet the government’s tests of soundness. In particular, two of the three proposed Garden Communities had not been demonstrated to be economically viable or deliverable – thus making the overall plan unsound.

The Inspector had determined that the Councils had been too optimistic in their assumptions about 1) the rate of housebuilding that could be achieved on an annual basis at each of the Garden Communities; and 2) the costs of delivering a Rapid Transit System (RTS) that linked all three Garden Communities to existing towns. Those factors combined the Inspector concluded, lead to both the proposed Colchester Braintree Borders Garden Community (at Marks Tey) and the West of Braintree Garden Community (near Rayne) were not likely economically viable or deliverable.

The Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community (between Elmstead Market and Colchester) was however smaller; its delivery was less dependent on achieving very high rates of housebuilding on an annual basis; and Essex County Council had secured £99million of Housing Infrastructure (HIF) funding to deliver the necessary A120/A133 link road and Rapid Transit System (RTS) linked the Garden Community to Colchester. The Inspector had therefore concluded that the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community (“TCB”) was viable, deliverable and sound and could realistically deliver around 2,000 (of a total 7,000-9,000) homes between then and 2033.

Notwithstanding his rejection of two of the three Garden Communities, the Inspector had advised that the Councils have properly followed the relevant legal and procedural requirements and that the housing and revised employment targets set out in the plan (including Tendring’s requirement of 550 homes a year) are sound. He has also endorsed the Councils’ approach to mitigating impacts of development on internationally important wildlife sites through the ‘Recreational disturbance Avoidance Mitigation Strategy’ (RAMS).

Options for how to proceed

It was reported that the Inspector had found the plan to be unsound in its current form, he had advised that the plan had the potential to be ‘made sound’ and that it could still progress to adoption if the Councils agreed to remove the Colchester Braintree Borders and West of Braintree Garden Communities and consulted the public and other interested parties on that ‘main modification’, along with other main modifications to the plan recommended by the Inspector.

The alternative to the above woul have been  to withdraw the Local Plan from the examination – effectively requiring all three Council’s to start their plans again from scratch.

To proceed with the current Local Plan, ‘Option 1’ - the option of removing two of the three Garden Communities from the plan and undertaking consultation on that, amongst other, main modifications was required to make the plan sound. Colchester Borough Council and Braintree District Council had recieved the same conclusion within their reports.

Proposed Modifications

Members were told that Officers had also received draft details of the ‘main modifications’ to the Section 1 Local Plan that the Inspector was likely to recommend – the majority of which take on board the suggested amendments that the Committee considered and agreed for consultation in 2019. The most notable of the additional modifications being indicated by the Inspector are those that remove the West of Braintree and Colchester Braintree Borders Garden Communities from the policies and associated maps and diagrams in the Section 1 Local Plan and any other references to those developments in the text of the plan.

Other main modifications included a new policy on ‘Recreation disturbance Avoidance and Mitigation Strategy’ (RAMS) and amendments to Policy SP4 ‘Providing for Employment’ updated the employment land requirements for each of the three Councils to reflect the latest evidence, included the requirement for Tendring for between 12 and 20 hectares of new employment land in the planned period to 2033.

The full schedule of draft main modifications was attached as Appendix 2 and a more detailed summary was included in Part 3 of that report. If the three authorities agreed to proceed with the current Local Plan process, Officers would make a formal request to the Inspector to issue his finalised schedule of main modifications.

Implications for the Section 2 Local Plan and Garden Community DPD

The Committee was informed that importantly, for Tendring, the Inspector had concluded that the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community was sound and could reasonably be expected to deliver around 2,000 homes up to 2033 (of which around 1,000 i.e. half would contribute towards meeting Tendring’s housing requirements). He had also re-confirmed the soundness of Tendring’s objectively assessed housing requirement of 550 dwellings per annum. If all three Councils agreed to undertake public consultation on the necessary modifications to the Section 1 Local Plan (rather than withdrawing it from the examination), there should be no need to find any additional sites for housing for inclusion in Tendring’s Section 2 Plan. (Members would recall from the reports to the last meeting of the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee on 8th June 2020 that Tendring’s Section 2 Local Plan ‘over-allocates’ by around 1,600 homes).

The Inspector had also raised no issues with Tendring’s employment land requirement being within the range of 12 and 20 hectares up to 2033 with a potential additional 25ha hectares of employment land to be provided as part of the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community.

Confirmation of the soundness of the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community should also allow Tendring District Council and Colchester Borough Council to progress the work required for the Page 26 preparation of a ‘Development Plan Document’ (DPD) setting out more detailed parameters for the Garden Community (see separate Report A2).

The implications of the Inspector’s findings on the future role of ‘North Essex Garden Communities’ (NEGC) as a delivery vehicle for Garden Communities (given that only one of the three developments can now proceed) would be the subject of separate reports to Cabinet in due course.

Next steps

It was reported to Members that subject to agreement by the authorities, Officers would respond to the Planning Inspector to confirm that the North Essex Authorities (NEAs) would proceed with the removal, from the Section 1 Plan, of the Colchester Braintree Borders and West of Braintree Garden Communities and wished to proceed with the examination of the Local Plan by undertaking public consultation on his main modification, along with other main modifications recommended by the Inspector. The Inspector would be asked to formally issue his finalised schedule of main modifications and advised the NEAs on the programme and timescales for the remainder of the examination.

The next stage would then be for the Councils to publish the main modifications for six-weeks consultation. Consultants LUC are preparing an update to both the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) and the Habitats Regulation Assessment (HRA) to assess the socio-economic and environmental impacts of the Section 1 Local Plan with the Inspector’s recommended main modifications and those documents would be published for consultation alongside the modifications. Any comments received would be submitted to the Inspector for his consideration before coming to a final decision on whether or not the Section 1 Plan, with those modifications, is sound and could be formally adopted. It was proposed that, subject to the Inspector’s agreement and completion of the SA and HRA work, the consultation would take place in August and September 2020.

In the meantime, Officers would continue work to prepare for the examination of the Section 2 Local Plan and the preparation of the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community DPD. Once the three authorities have come to a decision on how to progress with the Section 1 Local Plan, the Planning Inspectorate would advise the Councils on the likely timetables for the Section 2 examinations.

Having duly considered and discussed the contents of the report and its appendices:-

It was moved by Councillor C Guiglielmi, seconded by Councillor I Henderson and:-

RESOLVED that the Planning Policy and Local Plan Committee -

a)       noted the findings of the Planning Inspector’s letter dated 15 May 2020 (attached as Appendix 1 to this report) and his recommended modifications (attached as Appendix 2)

b)      following the agreement with the Leader of the Council, agreed to proceed with the Inspector’s suggested main modifications to remove both the Colchester Braintree Garden Community and the West of Braintree Garden Community from the Section 1 Local Plan for the purposes of soundness

c)       subject to the views of the other North Essex Authorities (Colchester Borough Council and Braintree District Council), authorises the Assistant Director for Strategic Planning and Place to notify the Planning Inspector of the intention to continue with the present Local Plan process, formally requested his finalised schedule of recommended main modifications for soundness and establish the timescales for the consultation exercise and subsequent stages in the process

d)      noted that public consultation would be undertook on all ‘main modifications’ recommended by the Planning Inspector to make the Local Plan sound (as set out in draft in Appendix 2)

e)      noted that an update to the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) and the Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA) for the Modified Section 1 Local Plan would need to be produced and published for consultation alongside the Inspector’s main modifications and that consultants LUC were already instructed to undertake this work.