Agenda item

Minutes:

Councillor Spikings presented the report which reminded Cabinet that the Council was required to facilitate the production and adoption of neighbourhood plans under the Localism Act 2011. The Cabinet agreed a series of delegated powers to facilitate this process at its meeting on 3 March 2015. It reserved to itself decisions as to whether a neighbourhood plan should proceed to a referendum, and if so whether the plan must first be amended to meet the relevant statutory requirements. Two neighbourhood plans had now reached the stage where such decisions must be made.

 

Brancaster Parish Council’s Draft Neighbourhood Plan was the first of this new type of plan to be formally submitted to the Borough Council, and South Wootton Parish Council followed closely behind with its Draft Neighbourhood Plan submission. In both cases the Plan area was for the whole of the relevant Parish.

 

The draft neighbourhood plans had been published by the Borough Council, and comments from the public invited. Both Plans had been formally examined by an independent Examiner taking into account the comments received.

 

The Borough Council must now consider the Examiners’ Recommendations and decide for itself whether the statutory tests had been met, or whether the plan could be modified to meet those tests. If the Borough Council was minded to make a decision different to the Examiner’s Recommendations, it must first consult on this before coming to its final decision and potentially moving to a Referendum.

 

Councillor Spikings explained that the life of any approved Neighbourhood Plan would be for the same period as the Core Strategy, and that this would be approved by the referendum at which more than 50% of those voting must vote in favour of it.

 

The report recommended that the South Wootton Plan be supported and move to Referendum stage, but the Brancaster Plan could benefit from some further amendments to assist them to achieve what they wanted from the Plan.

 

Councillor Mrs Nockolds commended the large amount of work which had been carried out by the communities on the Plans, which in South Wootton she felt had brought the community together and meant they had carried out all types of work in its preparation. She hoped that there would be a good turnout for the referendum.

 

Councillor Beales asked how the referenda would be organised and who would pay for them, and what consideration would have to be given to them in the planning process.  The Planning Policy Manager explained that the Elections Team would organise them, the Borough would fund them using grants from the Government.  When a planning application was submitted the Neighbourhood Plan had to be considered along with other planning policy considerations. It would not however usurp strategic planning issues.

 

Councillor Spikings commented that the Plan couldn’t state how many houses the community wanted or didn’t want, but could comment on the design etc it wanted in an area.  A community would also receive 25% of any CIL money raised instead of 15% without a Plan.

 

The meeting of the Joint Panels supported the recommendations.

 

RESOLVED: 1) That the submitted South Wootton Neighbourhood Plan :

a. be amended in accordance with the recommendations of the independent Examiner; and

b. so modified, should proceed to a local referendum covering the area of South Wootton Parish.

 

2) That the submitted Brancaster Neighbourhood Plan

a. be amended broadly in accordance with the recommendations of the independent Examiner but, subject to consultation, with detailed variation from those recommendations, as set out in Appendix 5; and

b. so modified, should proceed to a local referendum covering the area of Brancaster Parish.

 

3) That authority be delegated to the Executive Director, Environment and Planning, in consultation with the Planning Portfolio Holder, to consider responses to consultation on the proposed decisions differing from the Examiner’s recommendations, and determine the final changes to be made to the neighbourhood plan before it proceeds to the referendum.

Supporting documents: