Agenda and minutes

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RESOLVED:  Councillor J Moriarty be appointed Chair for the Municipal Year 2023/2024.

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RESOLVED:  Councillor R Blunt be appointed Vice Chair for the Municipal Year 2023/2024.

Apologies for absence was received from Councillors B Jones and Mrs V Spikings.

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The notes of the meeting held on 28 February 2023 were agreed as a correct record, subject to Councillor Moriarty being in attendance.

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There were no matters arising.

Members wishing to speak pursuant to Standing Order 34 should inform the Chairman of their intention to do so and on what items they wish to be heard before a decision on that item is taken.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider any business which, by reason of special circumstances, the Chairman proposes to accept as urgent under Section 100(b)(4)(b) of the Local Government Act, 1972.

There was no urgent business.

Members wishing to speak pursuant to Standing Order 34 should inform the Chairman of their intention to do so and on what items they wish to be heard before the meeting commences.  Any Member attending the meeting under Standing Order 34 will only be permitted to speak on those items which have been previously notified to the Chairman.

Councillors A Kemp (in person) and C Morley (Zoom) were present under Standing Order 34.

There was no Chair’s correspondence.

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The Planning Policy Manager provided a verbal update, a summary of the key points are set out below.

In January 2023, the Examination of the Local Plan was adjourned by the Planning Inspectors in order for the Council to undertake some additional work on some evidence based studies to support the Local Plan. This work has now been completed and the list of documents prepared is now subject to a statutory 6 week consultation period commencing on 8 September 2023. Only those  documents published for consultation will be subject to the consultation. 

The Task Group was informed that this consultation period  was a targeted consultation that people could respond to.  The representations received would then be forwarded to the Planning Inspectors for their consideration and would form the basis of the Examination Hearings which would resume early in 2024.

The Planning Policy Manager explained that in January 2023, the Planning Inspectorate issued a letter and action note which had been available on the Council’s website since that time setting out around 50 or so pieces of work which were required to be completed which had now been done.  It was noted that the main pieces of evidence based documents the consultation would be centred around would be on the topic papers:

•           Surrounding the changes to the spatial strategy and settlement hierarchy considered by the previous Local Plan Task Group, Cabinet and Council.

•           An update on the technical note on the transport evidence of the local plan essentially a technical paper. 

•           More detailed Transport Assessments had been undertaken by the County Council looking at the impacts on the road network, etc with regard to the site allocations within the Local Plan over the whole Plan period.

•           Retail impact threshold for the Hardwick Road area, the Inspector asked the Council to justify where the threshold would be when planning applications for retail applications would have to submit a retail impact assessment, a document had been prepared for consultation.

•           The Inspector asked the Borough Council to have a look in more detail on all sites included in the submission plan to see whether they were deliverable, developable, etc over the Plan period. This  was a major piece of work undertaken to show which sites were deliverable, the amount of housing likely to be delivered and when those houses would be delivered, informing the housing land supply and housing trajectory over the plan period.

•           West Winch Topic Paper.  The Inspector asked the Council to undertake some additional work to support the proposal for the growth area.  The document prepared was a lengthy one and a great number of studies had been undertaken to support the topic paper which included detailed transport assessments looking at the effect of what 4,000 homes would do the road network, the effect of the West Winch Housing Access Road which would help to mitigate it. There were also studies undertaken on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

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The Task Group received a presentation from the Planning Policy Manager and the Temporary Senior Planning Officer(copy attached to the Agenda).

The Task Group’s attention was drawn to the following areas:

•           Legal requirements.

•           Policy requirements.

•           Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment (2023).

•           Accommodate Needs.

•           Options to meet the Accommodation Needs.

•           Work being undertaken.

•           Timeline for work to be undertaken.

The Chair thanked officers for the presentation.

In response to a question from Councillor Sandell, the Planning Policy Manager providing an explanation of the definition “unauthorised sites” and added that it was land that did not have planning permission.

Following a question from Councillor Blunt on flood risk assessments and the impact on existing sites, the Planning Policy Manager explained that those sites located in the flood risk zone 2 and 3 would have had assessments undertaken as part of the planning permission process and highlighted that there was no concern.

Following further questions from Councillor Blunt in relation to flood risk and private sites, the Planning Policy Manager explained that authorised sites would have had to undertake a flood risk assessment as part of the planning process.  The Planning Policy Manager added that as part of this process the Council was considering all sites, particularly those where the is an identified need. Work is being undertaken to identify the level of flood risk for each site by consultants.  This will help to finalise the site assessment work that is currently being prepared.

Councillor de Whalley commented that it was his understanding that the expedience of speed of the process it was best to identify existing sites, regularise or extend them and that this was a challenging process.  Councillor de Whalley added that if the Council was unable to satisfy the need then it would be necessary to undertake a call for sites and asked how such a delay would impact upon the timetable.  In response, the Planning Policy Manager advised there were a number of options that could be looked at before undertaking a call for sites, including Council owned land or to approach Norfolk County Council to see if there was any land available.  The Task Group was advised that if the Council needed to do a call for sites then it would be very targeted and could add around  six weeks to the process but highlighted that the current initial feeling was that the Council was not going to be in that position.

Councillor Parish commented that he could accept the Inspector’s ruling on this matter but the fact that a Local Plan could fall on the basis that the Plan was unable to find sites required was nonsense and would be more sensible to allow more time to move forward with the Local Plan.  Councillor Parish further commented that if on some of the sites, caravans/mobile homes then the flood risk assessments was the same that applied to holiday  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

To be advised.

To be advised.