Issue - meetings

Option 1: Resolve to resource the preparation of the revised Local Plan in accordance with the recent previous Cabinet and Council resolutions

Option 2: Resolve not to resource the preparation of the revised Local Plan in accordance with the recent previous Cabinet and Council resolutions.

Advantages

The Council will enable its officers to prepare a reviewed local plan. Having an up to date development plan is a responsibility of the authority; the need to review the plan was agreed by Cabinet in September this year and is in effect unavoidable given that it is evident the delivery of development requirements cannot now be achieved in accordance with the policies of the adopted plan. If the Council does not resource the decision to review the plan now it will have to do so in the not too distant future in any case as the Council would need to commence the review of its adopted Local Plan by July 2025

By delaying a decision to enable the review of Local Plan and maintaining reserves until such time as it does resolve to resource the necessary review of the Local Plan, the Council would retain its reserves for a longer period of time.

Disadvantages

None are apparent; except for a delay in a decision to release resources to review the Local Plan until a later date.

The Council would not enable its officers to prepare a review the local plan. The Council would therefore be a position of having acknowledged the need to review its local plan and resolved to do so; but would not have enabled that resolution to be achieved by resourcing it

Risks

Members have been made aware at both Cabinet and Council meetings in September of this year that the government has announced proposed changes to the national plan-making system. If the review of the Local Plan enabled by this decision is not completed by the end of 2026, or alternatively the Council later resolves to prepare a plan in accordance with the new national plan-making system, then prospectively some of the evidence that is procured to inform a review of the Local Plan under the current system may need to be refreshed and incur further cost

There would be a clear reputational risk to the Council arising from the evident inconsistency of having resolved that its Local Plan should be reviewed in September but then conversely not enabling that review to be undertaken by virtue of a decision in December. Meanwhile with the passing of time before the Local Plan would have to be reviewed in any case it would become increasingly difficult for the Council to maintain confidence in the relevance of the strategic  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46