Districts call for staged-plan examination in reformed Local Plan-making

The District Councils Network (DCN) has called for the introduction of a staged-plan examination as well as strategic plans across housing market areas in its submission to the Local Plans Expert Group.

The group was set up by Planning Minister Brandon Lewis in September to examine how the Local Plan-making process could be streamlined.

The DCN’s submission, which can be viewed here, suggested that there should be:

• New strategic plans prepared by local consortia of councils.
• Simpler Local Plans, “with detail in flexible ‘supplementary” documents and less heavyweight, better targeted ‘evidence’ reports backing them up”.
• A staged examination of Local Plans “so councils have more certainty that their plans are on the right track”.
• More protection from ‘planning by appeal’ for councils who are progressing well with their plan to meet growth needs.
• A national ‘menu’ of Development Management Policies.
• Ways the government can ensure that local planning is properly resourced, “including cost recovery for planning applications”.
• Ways to improve the delivery of infrastructure to support new developments.

Cllr Gilian Brown, DCN lead for planning and leader of Arun District Council, said: “There is a clear common interest in successful reform of current planning arrangements, and the DCN hopes ministers and officials will take note of the submission.

“From a DCN perspective, our members require a clear explanation from Government as to what the early 2017 deadline for producing local plans will actually entail.

“And on a more fundamental level, the Government should review how they envisage resourcing the large number of plans that will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate at around the same time.

“Otherwise we risk creating a frustrating scenario, where districts which have compiled their plans according to the timetable find themselves sat in a long queue, waiting for an inspector to call.”