Agenda item

Resourcing the Review of the Lancaster District Local Plan

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Parr)

 

Report of Chief Officer – Planning and Climate Change

Minutes:

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Parr)

 

Cabinet received a report from the Chief Officer - Planning and Climate Change to secure resourcing to support the Review of the Lancaster District Local Plan.

 

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

 

 

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 policies of its Local Plan and continue to convincingly advocate the relevance of these policies in the determination of planning application proposals.

 

The officer recommendation is Option 1; to resolve to approve the recommendation of this report and thereby resource the preparation of the revised Local Plan in accordance with the recent previous Cabinet and Council resolutions. As previously advised the timetabling risks associated with the preferred option are very challenging, but it is considered to be the most appropriate response to recent developments and the likely emerging patterns of development within the district.

 

Councillor Parr proposed, seconded by Councillor Potter:-

 

“That the recommendation, as set out in the report, be approved.”

 

Councillors then voted:-

 

Resolved unanimously:

 

(1)       That Cabinet approves the release from reserves for the reasons as described within this report and presented in the Financial Implications section to enable the review of the adopted Local Plan for Lancaster District during the reminder of financial year 2023/24 and continuing in 2024/25 and 2025/26.

 

Officers responsible for effecting the decision:

 

Chief Officer – Planning and Climate Change

Chief Officer - Resources

 

Reasons for making the decision:

 

The preparation of Local Plan Documents which are part of the Council’s Development Plan are part of the Council’s Policy Framework (See Section 2.3 (c) of the Council’s Constitution). The Council is obliged to prepare and maintain the Development Plan for Lancaster District as described by Section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.  Although the Local Plan was adopted as recently as July 2020, in light of significant changes in circumstances, most particularly relating to the funding of strategic infrastructure in south Lancaster, the City Council has recently acknowledged (at Cabinet and Full Council) the need to review the Local Plan and has resolved to do so. The report sought the release of resources to enable the review to be undertaken. Maintaining an up-to-date development plan is a responsibility of the Council, thus the need to resource a review of the local plan would need to be taken at a later date in any case. By progressing the review now the Council can demonstrate that it is taking the appropriate and reasonable measures to ensure that it revisits its current development requirements and develops policies to enable delivery of them.

Supporting documents: