Decision details

Cabinet considered the report and RESOLVED (unanimous) to recommend that Council:

1.    Approves the Proposed Submission (‘Publication Draft’) Local Plan as attached at Appendix A, for the purpose of both its final consultation for six weeks (likely during January and February 2018); AND its subsequent submission to the Secretary of State for the purpose of independent examination.

2.    Approves the Policies Map (including associated inset maps) as set out as part of the agenda papers, for the purpose of consultation alongside the Local Plan consultation AND for subsequent submission to the Secretary of State for consideration alongside the examination of the Local Plan.

3.    Delegates to the  Head of Sustainable Growth Strategy any presentational improvements or other inconsequential changes (eg correcting typographical errors or factual inaccuracies) to the Publication Draft Plan or Policies Map that (taken together) do not materially affect the policies set out in the Local Plan prior to the consultation commencing.

4.    Delegates to the  Head of Sustainable Growth Strategy the ability to agree and consult upon a set of proposed modifications during the examination process (most likely at the very end of the examination process), if asked by the Inspector to do so.

The updated recommendation was for reasons set out in this report, namely due to the very recent publication of a Government document which materially affected the preparation of a Local Plan for Peterborough.

The alternative was to agree the original recommendations as set out in the original agenda item report. This remained a reasonable alternative option, because Government had set out clearly a ‘transitional’ arrangement for implementation of its proposals, as referred to above. Peterborough could take advantage of such transitional arrangements. However, this option had been rejected because it was considered that the most suitable course of action was to align the content of the Local Plan to the most up to date national policy, and in doing so likely result in a more robust Local Plan in the longer term. A short delay of no more than 3 months (likely significantly less) would enable that alignment to take place, a benefit which was considered to outweigh the cost of a short delay.

None.

A vast amount of evidence had been compiled as part of the plan making process and was either already available on the Council website or would be made available as part of the consultation process (Subject to approval by Cabinet and Full Council).

Local Plan evidence base could be viewed on our website.