 Welcome to the latest Parish Briefing – Planning edition.
This newsletter has been compiled by Dean Hermitage, Strategic Director of Planning, and is part of the council's ongoing commitment to increase transparency and publicise planning issues more widely to parishes and members of the public.
In this edition:
- Uttlesford Local Plan
- The Levelling up & Regeneration Act 2023
- Ecology & Bio-Diversity
- Christmas Break
In November, we formally published our draft Local Plan (known as the ‘Regulation 18’ version). This is the first draft of the new plan and sets out a range of new policies, and provisional housing and employment allocations up to 2041.
The team and I hosted five local plan drop-in exhibitions across the district. A number of district and parish councillors also attended.
We estimate that we spoke to more than 700 residents during the exhibitions. I also joined a number of parish council forums to talk about the local plan.
The consultation closed on 18 December and at time of writing we have counted over 1,000 responses. These will be reported on at a public meeting in the new year.
On 19 December, the Secretary of State wrote to the council seeking a programme for achieving a new local plan. We have already recently published one which sets out how we intend to progress and adopt a new local plan by 2026. The council will be responding to the Secretary of State in the new year to advise of such.
The Secretary of State has powers to intervene if a council does not progress its local plan. In the extreme, a plan can be imposed on a district. We will be working hard over the next six months, and beyond, to ensure we keep to the current programme and make sure our plan remains locally-led as opposed to being led by central government. We have already met with senior government officials to discuss next steps.
Not having an up-to-date local plan has made it more difficult for the council to defend refused planning applications at appeal. The extent of this is apparent within the draft local plan papers which set out that we have seen some 8,000 homes ‘committed’ (granted permission, built or allocated) since 2021. Most recently we saw planning permission for up to 1,200 homes granted on appeal at Great Easton. Not having a local plan does not mean no housing – housing growth comes regardless, as we have seen. However, a local plan is the most effective way to plan for infrastructure to support housing growth, to direct growth to the most sustainable locations, and set the standards by which new buildings should be built.
The number of major applications and major appeals we receive is far higher than other similar-sized councils, no doubt in-part due to not having a local plan. Resourcing these appeals takes up a huge amount of officer time, taking them away from doing other things. The reason the Planning Service is designated is wholly down to the proportion of our decisions being overturned on appeal, although this has improved from an overturn rate of 17% down to 12% in the past two years.
Looking to 2024, we have another challenging programme of meetings and decisions to make in the lead up to publishing the Regulation 19 version of the plan in the summer. We intend to submit our final draft to government at the end of 2024 in order to beat the coming changes to legislation that will govern the preparation of new local plans. If we do not beat this deadline we will likely be subject to significant delay in having to fall in line with a new system and risk government intervention.
Officers are currently reviewing the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other documents that government published this week. The new NPPF includes a further ‘carrot’ for having a full draft local plan. Once we have one we may only have to demonstrate a four-year supply of housing instead of the current five-year supply.
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In October the Levelling-up & Regeneration Bill received royal assent. In terms of content it’s a whopper of an Act at over 500 pages.
Among its many sections is the requirement for local councils to publish a design code in order to set local design standards. Uttlesford District Council was one of the first councils to write a draft design code last year.
We consulted on it earlier this year and plan to adopt it next year.
It will help raise the bar in terms of the design of new development and move us on from the ubiquitous housing developments we have seen pop up in recent years.
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The Act also introduces a new neighbourhood planning tool called a ‘neighbourhood priorities statement’, and it is stated that this will provide communities with a simpler and more accessible way to set out their key priorities and preferences for their local areas. Uttlesford already has a strong track record in producing neighbourhood plans and the increased weight given to them under the Act, along with this new provision, should benefit planning decision-making in Uttlesford. We look forward to supporting parish councils in bringing forward Neighbourhood Plans and Priorities Statements wherever possible.
Of particular note are the Act’s provisions to “strengthen the powers and sanctions available to local planning authorities to deal with individuals who fail to abide by the rules and process of the planning system”. Planning enforcement is a slow and cumbersome process and any improvements to the legislation here will be welcomed.
We have had a number of successes in planning enforcement this year. We have served a number of formal notices on unauthorised off-airport car parks and effectively shut down two of them and had to use our powers to stop a major housebuilder from continuing works as they had not discharged certain planning conditions.
The council has been successful in gaining grant funding in this area and used the money to employ an ecologist earlier in the year.
In the next two weeks we will be publishing a commitment to preserving and enhancing bio-diversity in the district, and have geared up so that we can ensure new developments provide a net gain in bio-diversity from January onwards.
Legislation will soon require a 10% bio-diversity improvement after development. Our draft local plan looks to push that to 20% in Uttlesford and we hope to prevent the decline in bio-diversity that we have seen over past decades.
The Planning Team is working until 12.30pm on 22 December and there will be a skeleton staff in the office between Christmas and New Year.
Our building inspectors remain on call over Christmas and New Years' Day in the unlikely event of any dangerous structures or building collapses.
I hope you have a restful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
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