To receive Report No.121/2020 from the Strategic Director for Places.

Report No.121/2020 was received from the Strategic Director of Places.

Councillor G Brown, Portfolio Holder for Environment, Planning, Property and Finance introduced the report the purpose of which was for Scrutiny to consider the Government’s proposals as set out in the White Paper and to agree any comments for consideration by Cabinet at its meeting to take place on 27^th October.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·       Officers were congratulated for their work in preparing both the initial draft consultation response and the update following the contributions made by Members at the Council meeting on Monday 12 October.

·       Members agreed that there was a distinct lack of detail and substance to the proposals contained within the White Paper.

·       Councillor Brown, the Portfolio Holder for Planning, had joined a meeting with civil servants from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Neighbourhood Plan section where they had talked in more detail of what the changes to legislation and regulations  might look like in particular;

-       Neighbourhood Plans (NP) being able to allocate sites

-       Whether NPs should have a role in defining codes within renewal areas and the role of NP Groups in the Local Plan process to find the best way to produce a common multi layered digital map for the area

-       Improvements to the NP process that could be made in line with the proposals for Local Plans

-       Support for NP Groups to embrace the opportunities of digital plan making and data.

·       It was important that a technically strong and robust set of arguments was submitted not just on those parts of the Paper which the Council disliked but also those that it did, as it was made clear, following a meeting with the Rutland MP Alicia Kearns, that there was a lot of unrest in Parliament about the white paper and that the Government might take stock of the strength of feeling within the country.

·       Alicia Kearns had met with Chris Pincher, the Minister for Housing and Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to fight on RCC’s behalf on the key issues.

·       The Unitary Councils Network had also submitted a response to Government on the white paper which RCC had been involved in and which strengthened the points put forward to Government.

·       A Select Committee was being set up to look at the white paper and RCC would be providing a robust response to the 10 questions asked as Ministers would be challenged on the basis of the answers RCC provided.

·       Councillor Razell commented on the ‘shoddiness’ of the White Paper which had resulted in officers having to spend an inordinate amount of time, far in excess of what they should have had to, responding to the paper. The comments back to Government should reflect this.

·       There was no mention in the White Paper of traveller sites and this needed to be highlighted in the RCC response.

·       Councillor Payne felt that the biggest issue with the paper was the lack of accountability and questioned whether this issue had come through strongly enough in the RCC response and cited paragraph 6.2 of the revised response as an example. The proposal that automatic outline planning permission would be granted for areas identified as Growth areas caused grave concerns as the Council would have very little opportunity to go into detail and consider the public interest.

·       As the Paper stressed that Neighbourhood Plans would be very important going forward, Councillor Fox was concerned that many parish meetings did not have enough funding to draw up a Neighbourhood Plan and asked whether there would be any funding available if they joined together. In response, Councillor Brown confirmed that if Communities could get a group of 21 people or more together they could make a submission to the Local Authority to ask for funding. Sometimes however, if there was a common objective it was better for communities to join with a larger neighbouring parish council. Councillor Brown warned against extending this any wider, for example to take in a ward, as the amount of work increased exponentially in relation to the number of bodies you had involved in delivering a Neighbourhood Plan.

·       Funding had been increased to £10,000 which was enough to support the production of a Neighbourhood Plan however it was important to get the right consultants who were knowledgeable in their field and provided value for money. Another funding option would be for parish meetings to raise their precepts.