Council and councillors

(KEY DECISION)

Report No. 134/2018 was received from the Interim Director of Places.

Mr G Brown, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Planning, Environment, Property and Finance introduced the report, the purpose of which was to seek approval from Cabinet for further specific consultation to be undertaken with respect to the formulation of the new Rutland Local Plan. This consultation was being undertaken in order to fully consider the implications of incorporating the potential development of St. George’s Barracks into the Local Plan.

Mr Brown provided a summary of the purpose of the report as follows:

The purpose of this report is to seek approval of Cabinet for a specific consultation to consider modifications to the emerging new Local Plan for Rutland and seek the views of the residents of the County on the attached documents. Those views will be considered by Cabinet and Council as part of their consideration of the developing Local Plan later this year.

This will allow full consideration of the implications of incorporating the potential development of the brownfield site at St George’s Barracks into the Local Plan.

The incorporation of the development provides an opportunity to reduce the scale of housing allocations in other locations across the County from those previously proposed in the Draft Plan in July 2017.

First of all St George’s. As you will recall the Council reached an agreement with the MOD through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the autumn of 2017 after the Draft Local Plan had been published. This was to examine the scope for the development on this brownfield site planned for closure in 2021. A high level MasterPlan providing “initial concepts” was produced and has been the subject of considerable public consultation which was reported upon last week.

During the early part of 2017, when the Local Plan was being produced in its draft form, there was no robust evidence to enable detailed consideration of St George’s for its inclusion in the Plan. A number of responses to that consultation specifically highlighted that it would be desirable if the Local Plan could articulate the potential re-use of this site.

The MoU proposes a garden village of between 1500 to 3000 homes together with new employment, shops, education, health and community facilities.

Within the paper to Cabinet and the consultation document an attempt has been made to explain what a garden village means in a Rutland context although this will be further developed with the Advisory Group and the Project Board and ultimately for approval by Cabinet and Council later this year.

There are a number of key issues which impact the scope of the development which need to be addressed

• The location of the minerals
• The feasibility and demand for the scale of development which will ultimately be proposed
• The listed buildings and their setting
• Transport infrastructure
• Landscape appraisals
• Ecological appraisals including a Habitat Regulation Assessment in respect of the Rutland Water Special Protection Area and the RAMSAR site

All these issues will need to be fully addressed in advance of the Pre-Submission version of the new Local Plan which is currently scheduled for public consultation in early 2019. The Council will ensure that the MOD and future developers of the site appropriately resolve these matters.

Within the appendices to the report there are a number of important documents which I don’t plan to go through in detail but will be happy to answer any questions on, however the key elements are:-

Spatial Strategy

The Spatial Strategy (Page 24) confirms the need through the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) for an Objectively Assessed Need of a minimum of 160 homes per year to be developed in Rutland over the next 20 years, this is down from the 171 homes identified in the previous version of the SHMA.

The Government has recently introduced a different method of calculating need which is based on the ratio of average income to average house prices multiplied by a factor. This is a very crude instrument and does not take into account the specific demographic issues which we face, namely a larger older population and significantly lower representation in the 25 to 44 age range

Since we have specifically calculated a ‘Rutland’ Objectively Assessed Housing Need taking into account our specific demographics, it is proposed that we use that number rather than the formulaic approach. This would be acceptable to the Planning Inspector at examination. In fact we would probably struggle to justify otherwise given the evidence that is available.

Over the next 20 years we need to deliver a minimum of 160 homes per year a total of 3200 and as you can see in the table 2 (Page 9) with the inclusion of about 1200 homes from St George’s, this will result in 400 less homes needing to be allocated in Oakham, 181 in Uppingham and 367 in the Smaller Service Centres and no requirement to justify Windfall sites in the other villages. This approach will give us much more flexibility to our local approach to managing our future growth needs.

Settlement Hierarchy

The Settlement Hierarchy (Page 25) now proposes to include the St George’s site and Policy RLP3 (Page 27) defines the way in which development should take place within Rutland. You will note para 4 relating to the Quarry Farm development as part of South Kesteven’s housing need.

Policy for St George’s Development

A new Policy is proposed (Page 33) and it lays out the basis for the development on the site using a Rutland definition of the garden village and the key elements which the development must ensure are provided (Page 34). In addition, any development proposals will also have to demonstrate how they avoid, minimise, mitigate or compensate for any adverse environmental impacts and meet all the criteria in paras A to G (Page 35).

Additional Sites

Since the Draft Plan was published in July 2017, a number of new sites have been presented to the Council and a couple have been removed by their owners. It was decided that these new sites should be consulted upon to ensure appropriate and timely community engagement prior to the writing of the Pre-Submission Plan.

A review of all the sites which are available will be assessed for consideration within the Local Plan taking into account all aspects of sustainability and resident’s comments both in 2017 and from this consultation.

In summary these documents provide a clear explanation of the Spatial Strategy for development in Rutland

I therefore propose that Cabinet approves the attached documents for the purpose of public consultation with respect to the preparation of the Rutland Local Plan 2016 -2036.

In relation to the Quarry Farm Development Mr Brown confirmed:

Why has the Rutland part of Quarry Farm/North Stamford not been included in the allocated houses for the Rutland Local Plan?

Local planning authorities must demonstrate how they have complied with the statutory “Duty to Co-operate” at the independent examination of their Local Plans. If a local planning authority cannot demonstrate that it has complied with the duty, then the Local Plan will not be able to proceed further in examination and is likely to be found unsound.

Local planning authorities will need to bear in mind that the cooperation should produce effective and deliverable policies on strategic cross boundary matters.

Because the strategy for the future growth of Stamford has been/is being considered in its entirety it is unlikely that the portion of Quarry Farm within Rutland could be put forward as an allocated site in its own right. It is only coming forward because South Kesteven District Council see the development on both sides of the County boundary as meeting their needs as a single sustainable master planned coordinated development.

This is the basis of our Duty to Co-operate.

We will retain the numbers within Rutland as meeting our 5 year housing supply as well as receiving the Council Tax, New Homes Bonus and CIL. It does not form part of our plan for allocations.

During discussion the following points were raised:

1. Mr Walters requested clarification as to how the issues highlighted at 1.17 of Appendix 1 to the report would be resolved and how and by whom would decisions in relation to these resolutions be approved. Mr Ingram, Interim Strategic Director for Places, confirmed that all decisions would be subject to Cabinet and/or Council approval and, following approval as part of the Local Plan, any sites would subsequently be subject to the planning decision making process;
2. Mr Brown confirmed that although the MoU proposed a garden village of between 1500 to 3000 homes, there was no agreed definitive figure and comments were still being sought with regard to the number of houses and the infrastructure requirements;
3. Mr Wilby highlighted the importance of assessing the impact of both the St Georges Site and the Quarry Farm Site on existing infrastructure and made particular reference to the impact on schools and the A1 junction.  The views of local people living near the developments should also be considered.  Mr Foster added that timing was also key in relation to infrastructure and that improvements should be made, where possible, before work on building projects commenced;
4. Members felt that the report and appendices had been written in a plain English, understandable and accessible format.

DECISION

That Cabinet APPROVED the documents attached to Report No. 134/2018 for the purposes of public consultation with respect to the preparation of the Rutland Local Plan 2016-36.

Reason for Decision

1. This report sets out proposals for:

• Public consultation regarding the incorporation of redevelopment of the St.George’s Barracks site into the Local Plan;
• Public consultation on additional sites promoted for development by landowners and/or potential developers;
• how comments made during about these documents will help shape the form and content of the new Local Plan.

2. The next stage in the process of preparing the Local Plan will be the publication of Pre-Submission Local Plan. This is currently scheduled to come to Cabinet for consideration by October this year for approval by full Council In November. A further period of public consultation at the start of 2019 will follow once the Pre-Submission Local Plan is approved by Council, prior to submission to the Secretary of State.