Local Development Framework Consultation

Support

Option B - Communities and/or developers bringing forward sites for housing and employment for consideration under relevant Core Strategy policies, through neighbourhood plans and/or other local initiatives

In principle, my answer to the above question should be (B), however I am reluctant to submit this as my response as there are a number of related issues that are of great concern. My actual preference would be for an additional option of (C) which would allow for control to be put into the hands of the residents of small communities and for the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to be heavily amended to take power away from landowners and developers, and to protect our countryside against over-development, and against inappropriate/unwanted development in small settlement and hamlets. The protection of the rural landscape and the need for any development to be in keeping with, and proportionate to, existing settlements is also of immense importance to the majority of us who have chosen to live in small communities – and the future development of any such community should be in the hands of that community – not in the hands of landowners, developers and local authorities.

The consultation question is posed within the context of the South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) Local Development Framework (LDF) and Core Strategy document. The SLDC LDF's Core Strategy has the considerable advantage that it is a strategy, and a well-reasoned one at that, which carefully protects small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside and thereby the character of South Lakeland. For that reason, I would be minded to favour option (A), although as we have not yet seen the outcome of our initial responses to this consultation this feels like a dangerous path to tread.

Additionally, the whole situation must now be interpreted in terms of the current government's Draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) or whatever version of this becomes law, and in that context option (B) may well have unforeseen and perhaps undesirable consequences.

My understanding of the implications of option (B) for development in small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside, based on reading of the NPPF in conjunction with the Core Strategy document in the SLDC LDF and the online documentation associated with the present Further Consultation, is as follows.

1. In line with the NPPF's localism agenda, which aims to devolve as much control as possible as locally as possible consistent with the general central government guidelines which it articulates, development provision for small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside in South Lakeland would be taken out of the planning regime proposed in the Core Strategy component of the LDF and given instead to these communities to manage for themselves.

2. Management of development in small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside is based on neighbourhood plans drawn up by parish councils and/or 'neighourhood forums' which 'give communities direct power to plan the areas in which they live. Parishes and neighbourhood forums can use neighbourhood plans to:
* Develop a shared vision for their neighbourhood.
* Set planning policies for the development and use of land, and
* Give planning permission through Neighbourhood Development Orders and Community Right to Build Orders' (NPPF:13).

Once a neighbourhood plan is formulated and approved by an independent examiner (NPPF:13-14) and ratified by a local referendum (NPPF:14), 'the policies it contains take precedence over existing policies in the Local Plan for that neighbourhood (in the present case the SLDC LDF) where they are in conflict (NPPF:13). These provisions are taken to constitute 'a powerful set of tools for local people to ensure that they get the right types of development for their community' (NPPF:13).

3. The caveat to the 'powerful set of tools' is that 'the ambition of the neighbourhood should be aligned with the strategic needs and priorities of the wider area. Neighbourhood plans, therefore, must be in general conformity with the strategic policies of the Local Plan' (NPPF:13). The Local Plans are, moreover, subject to the 'presumption in favour of sustainable development, which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan making and decision taking' (NPPF:4). As a consequence, 'the application of the presumption will have implications for how communities engage in neighbourhood planning. Critically, it will mean that neighbourhoods should:

* Develop plans that support the strategic development needs set out in Local Plans, including policies for housing and economic development.
* Plan positively to support local development, with the power to promote more development than is set out in the Local Plan, and
* Identify opportunities to use neighbourhood development orders to grant planning permission for developments that are consistent with an adopted neighbourhood plan' (NPPF:4).

The 'powerful tools' which the NPPF proposals give to neighbourhoods to 'develop a shared vision of their neighbourhood...to ensure that they get the right types of development for their community' are in fact highly constrained in that they entail a strong convergence of NPPF proposals, Local Plans, and neighbourhood plans.

This criteria and the associated guidelines lean heavily towards a requirement on neighbourhoods to plan for development – this is a worrying presumption that could easily create a situation in which landowners and property developers are given more power than the communities that the localism legislation should be serving.

Given good faith on all sides, this is not a problem. It is, however, not difficult to see how self-interested parties might exploit this to the detriment of small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside. The last-quoted excerpt from NPPF:4 to the effect that neighbourhoods 'plan positively to support local development, with the power to promote more development than is set out in the Local Plan', together with the reference to 'neighbourhood development orders' in the same excerpt, looks on the face of it like an attempt to circumvent Local Authority control over planning.

A neighbourhood landowner might, for example, propose a development for personal gain rather than in the best interests of the community, and the NPPF provides absolutely no criteria on which the community could base an objection; as the NPPF currently stands, and given in particular 'presumption in favour', there is nothing obvious in the NPPF to prevent the development going ahead against the wishes of the community. It is difficult to see how this gives 'communities direct power to plan the areas in which they live', as the NPPF claims -just the opposite, in fact. If such a scenario were replicated across South Lakeland, the result would be random development to the detriment of the area as a whole. Anyone who has spent time in countries such as Spain, Ireland and North America, where development planning has been much less stringent than the current UK planning arrangements, will have seen the unattractive effects of the consequent suburban sprawl at first hand.

As mentioned above, the SLDC LDF's Core Strategy, if followed, currently protects small settlements, hamlets, and open countryside and thereby the character of South Lakeland. I am therefore minded to say that my preference is therefore to stick with parts of Option (A) but to combine it with aspects of Option (B) as well as my option (C) i.e. keep the protection that the Core Strategy document gives to small settlements and hamlets, but also base decisions (whether in the LDF or outside of it) on the views and the local needs of the residents of those communities.